iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch Hidden Autocorrect Keyboard Bar for iOS 5 Can be Enabled Through Hack

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You might have uttered damn you autocorrect curses every so often whenever your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch keyboard writes one thing when you mean a different thing altogether. A hidden feature that activates an Android-like word selection bar might help you type in more accurate auto-corrected words.

Android users have enjoyed selecting words from multiple possibilities when their smartphones or tablets are auto-correcting words while typing. Apple has taken the approach of determining what you want to say, and will not give the user a choice when auto-correcting words being typed. As such, this has sometimes led to funny, mean and even costly mistakes, especially for users who don’t review the text they enter before hitting Send.

A hack shared by 9to5mac enables a secret feature: an autocorrect bar just like Android’s own keyboard feature. When this is enabled, users can choose from multiple words when auto-correcting.

Enabling the iOS 5 autocorrect bar is simple enough, with these steps:

• Download and install iBackupBot.
• Backup your iDevice in iTunes.
• Open iBackupBot and then load the backup file.
• Find Library/Preferences/com.apple.keyboard.plist. Open the file.
• Add the following code: <key>KeyboardAutocorrectionLists</key><string>YES</string>.

Save the edits and then restore the backup using iBackupBot. This should now enable the autocorrect bar on top of your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch keyboard, which lets you choose from among the different possible words based on the letters and keystrokes you’ve entered, so far. Hopefully, this feature can reduce those damn you autocorrect moments. We wonder why Apple does not give users the option of activating this feature in the first place, along with the hidden panorama mode in the iOS 5 Camera app we earlier shared.