Ducking Finally …
“Textual ambiguity may be a thing of the past if Apple adopts one of its newly-published patent applications, a system which will inform the person on the other end of the line when autocorrect has been at work,” reports AppleInsider.
U.S Patent No 20160117299, entitled “Device, Method and Graphical User Interface for Visible and Interactive Corrected Content,” references a situation where an entered character string, which is part of a draft electronic message, is received.
This draft electronic message is then “modified” by replacing the entered character string with a replacement character string, Apple says.
So far so good. This is generally how sending a message using autocorrect on the iPhone works – today.
Here’s the new part:
“The resulting modified electronic message is sent, and a transcript comprising the modified electronic message is displayed,” the company says, as it cites that the replacement character string [the part that autocorrect ... corrected] is “visually distinguished” within the [message] transcript.
Essentially, Apple is saying that -one day- the iPhone may be able to visually point out to the person receiving your text when a certain part of that message has been modified or altered by iOS’s autocorrect feature, making those accidental text slip-ups often caused by the intelligent text replacement system … that little bit less embarrassing.
Read the full patent at the USPTO.