iOS 5 hides an Android-like autocorrect keyboard bar, here's how to enable it
In addition to the hidden panorama mode, iOS 5 hides another secret feature: an Android-like autocorrect keyboard bar. As you can see in the screenshot above, courtesy of Sonny Dickson, the bar lets users pick from a series of word choices.
Context & Ripple Effects
Hidden-feature hunting has become a ritual around each major iOS release: MacRumors was digging undisclosed settings out of iPhone firmware back in iPhone 2.2 in October 2008, and Gadget Lab catalogued seven hidden features in iOS 5 just weeks after its October 2011 launch. This find — an autocorrect bar offering tappable word choices, enabled via a settings tweak and credited to Sonny Dickson — extends that list, alongside the previously reported hidden panorama mode.
First-order effects
- Users willing to dig into iOS 5's settings gain an Android-style suggestion bar above the keyboard, turning Apple's fixed correction behavior into a choice-based one.
- The discovery hands Apple free telemetry of a sort: attention around the feature signals user appetite for visible word-choice input without Apple having committed to shipping it.
Second-order effects
- With comScore putting Android at 40% of U.S. smartphone subscriber share by August 2011, every borrowed Android convention narrows the interface gap Apple uses to differentiate iOS — raising the cost of leaving features dormant.
- If the bar proves popular among enthusiasts, pressure builds on Apple to promote it from hidden toggle to default keyboard behavior in a future release.
Third-order effects
- The episode points toward convergence between the two dominant mobile platforms: as Android and iOS compete for the same subscribers, interaction patterns migrate across both, and 'hidden feature' discoveries become an early indicator of which direction each OS is drifting.
The trend: iOS and Android are converging on shared input conventions, with enthusiast-discovered hidden features previewing where each platform's keyboard and camera software is headed.