this post was submitted on 20 May 2024
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Why is predictive text so hard to disable? (beehaw.org)
submitted 5 months ago by friendly_ghost@beehaw.org to c/programming@beehaw.org
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Does anyone know, or can anyone guess, the business case for predictive text? On phone apps, it is often incredibly difficult to turn off. Why is that, do you think? (The examples I have recent experience with are Facebook and Outlook mobile apps.)

I would have thought that, for AI training purposes, they would want humans typing things and not just regurgitating canned responses. But apparently not?

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[–] jarfil@beehaw.org 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

On Android, most apps depend on the keyboard.

  • Gboard has a configurable suggestions bar where you can pick words, or not.
  • Microsoft SwiftKey works similarly, but it underlines the word you're typing.
  • AnySoftKeyboard works like Swiftkey.

Only exception I've seen, is Copilot, which shows the suggested word directly, to be selected with [tab], but you can still type a different one.

I've noticed no such behavior on Facebook. Have you checked your keyboard settings?