Feb 25, 2025 - Business

Apple says it's fixing iPhone bug that types "Trump" instead of "racist"

Rebecca Falconer

President Donald Trump takes a question from a reporter in the Oval Office at the White House on February 10, 2025 in Washington, DC. — President Trump at the White House earlier this month. Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Apple said Tuesday it's working to fix an iPhone bug after some users reported its automatic dictation feature briefly displays "Trump" when they say "racist" before the text-to-speech transcription software corrects itself.

The big picture: A viral TikTok video of the glitch that Apple says erroneously suggests the word "trump" when users dictate some words that also include an "r" consonant caused outrage among conservatives online who've accused Big Tech of political bias.

The glitch underscores artificial intelligence's accuracy problems as the technology develops and as companies like Apple move to make AI a key differentiator in choosing a smartphone.

Zoom in: Apple says the glitch is sometimes occurring during initial analysis when the speech recognition models that power dictation have on occasions displayed words that contain some phonetic overlap, but then further analysis identifies the intended word.

What they're saying: "We are aware of an issue with the speech recognition model that powers Dictation and we are rolling out a fix today," an Apple spokesperson said in an emailed statement Tuesday evening.

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Apple says it's fixing iPhone bug that types "Trump" instead of "racist"

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