Irritating. Irksome. Infuriating.
Maybe even: “I hate this.”
These are some of the words several iOS users couldn’t use this weekend when describing the iPhone’s inability to type a capital “I” on their keyboards. But alas, you or a friend, or someone you saw on social media likely ran into this issue.
Hey @Apple I’d like to type the singular letter “eye” without the letter A and this god forsaken question mark in a box replacing it
— Kirbie Johnson (@kirbiejohnson) November 3, 2017
This is a hilarious iOS 11 bug pic.twitter.com/TXFXbvgaqO
— Mike Murphy (@mcwm) November 6, 2017
The capital “I” has been replaced with an exclamation point and a question mark for users hit by the bug. Others have seen the letter replaced with “A” and a series of horizontal black lines. The switch has impacted users on iOS 10 and 11.
Apple did not respond to TheWrap’s request for comment on an expected fix for the problem, but did post a brief support note on the matter this weekend. The bandaid lets users replace a capital “I” with a lowercase “i” — which will look odd, but not as odd as the bizarre exclamation point-question mark combo.
Apple’s short-term solution doesn’t seem to be working for everyone. TheWrap’s own Beatrice Verhoeven ran into the “i” problem this weekend and said the workaround did nothing.
It sounds like the fix needs a fix, too. For now, the best move is to download a third-party keyboard to your iPhone, like Google’s GBoard.
I can’t with this stupid “I” glitch on iPhone. Fix it @apple
— Beatrice Verhoeven (@bverhoev) November 6, 2017
We’ll update you if Apple gets back with a more substantial remedy. CEO Tim Cook is probably wondering why this couldn’t have happened with the letter “x” instead, as millions of customers await their new iPhone Xs in the mail.