How To: turn off predictive text in iOS 8
I’m usually pretty good about giving Apple’s “new way” of doing things a chance. Whether it was the dual scroll arrow on the bottom of Finder windows, or the inverse scrolling on the MacBook’s touchpad, my motto has always been, “Well, Apple must have researched this, so let’s see if this is as good, better, or at least not worse than the old way of doing things.” More often than not I got used to the new way, and had to admit Apple was right (except for those grouped scroll arrows… GEEZ what were they thinking?)
However, I had up to this point never had as immediate and visceral a reaction to a change as I did with Apple’s new “Predictive Text” which permeates iOS 8.
Those 3 boxes, that change with each letter I type, and FLASH distractingly when it thinks it hit gold…. They are so jarring and make my windows feel so cramped, I gave it about half an hour before saying “Hell no”.
Luckily, if you also aren’t a fan, it’s easy to get rid of.
Simply
1) Go to your Settings APP
2) Scroll down to GENERAL
3) Scroll down to KEYBOARD
4) uncheck Predictive
Hooray! Your iPhone is now useable again!
I know predictive text has been a thing on other phones for some time, and apparently someone must find it useful, but wow is it annoying. I’m not sure if there is a better implementation out there, but I am not impressed with Apple’s. Sorry.
Ugh! Thank you SO very much for this… I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to turn it off! At first it gave me an option to “slide” it down and away, but apparently once you leave it there, it wants to stay. You saved my texting. Thank you!
THANK YOU!! I thought I would go insane with another minute of it!
Thanks for this! I was beginning to lose my mind!
Thank you, I am glad that it is possible to turn it off.
Thank you.. It was diriving me crazy.
If you have other keyboards activated such as emoji’s, tap and hold the smiley face and “Predictive” is at the top and you can turn it on and off right in the app from the keyboard 🙂
Whew. I gave it about 5 minutes before saying “my God, this is stunningly annoying!” Thanks for the instructions on how to get rid of it.
Is it possible to turn off the predictive audio while still allowing the predictive text? I can’t seem to figure out how to do that, short of switching my phone to vibrate whenever I’m typing.
If you have other keyboards activated such as emoji’s, tap and hold the smiley face and “Predictive” is at the top and you can turn it on and off right in the app from the keyboard 🙂
Thank you so much! I was going insane with it!
Thank you so much for the simple, clear instructions to turn off this function!
Ummm, I have to strike a discordant note, but I like it so far. I haven’t used it a whole lot but after playing around with it, I think it will be useful. Plus, its a lot better than having auto-correct insert the wrong word.
???? THANK YOU!… I was beginning to regret updating to iOS 8!
I was willing to give the predictive text option a chance but I have last all of about an hour. It takes up too much space and it just doesn’t feel/look right for an iPhone / Apple device!
Think you’ve just saved my sanity, thank you!
How do u get the microphone at the bottom of the screen? I had it but than I had to restore it bc it wouldn’t update so now I can’t figure out how to get it back.
Doesn’t work for me
As soon as I leave settings after I uncheck it it just turns back on
Any ideas?
You made my life better today! Thanks!
Thank you!
Thank GOD! What a pain in the *ss that was. Thank you very much for posting that bit of info. One day of this stupid upgrade and I was ready to go back to Motorola!
THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!
I don’t know where everybody is complaining about it’s not like it’s a big deal or anything y’all need to grow up and learn how to deal with shit
You can also just hide it by swiping down with your finger anywhere in the predictive text area.
Ty so much, thing sucks so bad
You solved my texting problems.
Predictive text is for illiterate.
Cheers.
just thank you.
I’ll be the minority vote here. I think Predictive text is the best new feature of IOS8! It speeds up my texting and I can turn off the annoying auto correct.
Is anyone else noticing, at least in Apple’s IPAD mini,3 email program that when you type sentences random commas appear after several words where they do not belong? I am now on the IOS8 version that includes new Apple Music however it was doing this prior to that update. Now I see it’s doing it in here (after the word noticing and the word mini in the first sentence) as well so it’s not just their email program! After reading the threads in here I tried for kicks turning off predictive text and I can officially predict now that that is not the cause. Does anyone have any other ideas or is it happening to anyone else? It appears it only happened twice while typing in this thread but in Apple email it happens in many sentences and no where even close to the comma button that it could be typed by me in error.
Thanks!
I like the predictive text. I cannot stand the audio. Is it possible to turn the audio off? If I hear “capital I” one more time I may scream!!!
To turn off the audio go to Settings, General, Accessiblity, Speech, scroll down and turn “speak auto-text” off.