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iOS Question Mark Box ⍰

iOS Question Mark Box ⍰

Part of a series on Apple. [View Related Entries]

Updated May 12, 2021 at 03:33AM EDT by Y F.

Added Nov 10, 2017 at 10:58AM EST by Don.

PROTIP: Press 'i' to view the image gallery, 'v' to view the video gallery, or 'r' to view a random entry.

About

iOS Question Mark Box ⍰ refers to an iOS autocorrect bug that replaced the letter "i" with the emoji ⍰.

Origin

On October 31st, 2017, Apple released the iOS 11.1 update for iPhone and iPad mobile devices. In the coming days, iOS 11 users began noticing a glitch that would autocorrect the letter "i" to "⍰" while typing on their mobile device.

Spread

On November 5th, Redditor catitobandito submitted a post asking "Why do I keep seeing a ! with a ? and a box around it on certain posts?" to /r/OutOfTheLoop,[1] to which several Redditors responded that it was a bug in iOS 11.1. On November 6th, Apple Support[3] recommended setting up "Text Replacement" to fix the bug. Meanwhile, Twitter user @hot_kommodity_ tweeted a crying reaction GIF in response to the bug, which gathered upwards of 4,700 likes and 3,200 retweets over the next four days (shown below).




On November 7th, the @lady_capulet[3] Instagram feed posted a photograph of singer Whitney Houston with the caption "And A ⍰⍰⍰⍰⍰ will always love you" (shown below, left). That day, Cosmopolitan[5] published a "listicle": titled "18 Funny iPhone Glitch Tweets That Will Make You Want to Throw Your Phone at a Wall." On November 8th, Instagram user @boywithnojob submitted a photo of a person getting a tattoo of the sentence "A ⍰ love you" (shown below, right).


funny meme of Whitney Houston singing And I Will Always Love Your but with the error emoji for the letter i Someone getting a tattoo of the iphone error onto their arm

On November 9th, Redditor go_be_viola submitted a post asking "Why are there all these memes about A (question mark in a box) all of a sudden?" to /r/OutOfTheLoop.[2] That day, Apple fixed the bug with the release of iOS 11.1.1 In the coming days, several news sites published articles about the glitch, including NY Mag,[6] ARS Technica,[9] TIME Magazine,[10] Business Insider,[11] Sunday Express[12], Forbes,[13] Mac Rumors,[15] Apple Insider,[14] Telegraph,[16] Emojipedia[7] and Thought Catalog.[8]

Search Interest

External References

[1] Reddit – /r/OutOfTheLoop

[2] Reddit – /r/OutOfTheLoop

[3] Instagram – @lady_capulet

[4] Apple Support – If you type the letter i and it autocorrects to an A with a symbol

[5] Cosmopolitan – 18 Funny iPhone Glitch Tweets That Will Make You Want to Throw Your Phone at a Wall

[6] NY Mag – The Week Apple Broke the Alphabet

[7] Emojipedia – Why Am I Seeing Question Mark Boxes?

[8] Thought Catalog – Keyboard Glitch Is The Worst

[9] ARS Technica – Fix for iOS 'i' autocorrect issue reportedly coming this week

[10] TIME – Apple Has Fixed the Autocorrect Bug That Turns 'i' into "A" on iPhones

[11] Business Insider – Apple just released the fix for the iPhone 'question mark' glitch

[12] Sunday Express – iOS 10.2 emoji update – Why iPhone users are seeing black boxes with question marks

[13] Forbes – Apple Confirms iOS 11.1 Autocorrect Bug And Suggests This Workaround

[14] Apple Insider – Origin of Apple's 'A ?' QuickType bug a mystery, but notoriety grows with spread of memes, tweets

[15] Mac Rumors – Apple Releases iOS 11.1.1 Update With Fix for 'A[?]' Autocorrect Bug

[16] The Telegraph Technology – iPhones are autocorrecting the letter 'i' to an incomprehensible symbol

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