Apple says it will issue a software fix for an unusual and ill-timed transcription issue that’s been shown in multiple TikTok videos. The issue led to some iPhones displaying the word “Trump” when performing voice-to-text transcription with words that include “racist.”
An Apple spokesperson said the company was aware of the problem, which it attributed to a speech-recognition model problem and said, “We are rolling out a fix.” Apple said “phonetic overlap” with the words that include the consonant R were triggering the bug.
In our own informal test, was not able to get iOS version 18.1.1 to display the word “Trump” when using words including “racist,” “rhubarb,” “rhythmic,” “ramp” or “ruffles.” The New York Times reported that it was able to replicate the issue several times.
A newer version of iOS, 18.3.1 was released earlier in February.
It’s possible that the suggested word was capitalized as the start of a sentence, not necessarily as a proper name. And instead of referencing the president’s surname, the use of “trump” could be a reference to the word that means to beat or gain an advantage over.
One former Apple employee speculated to the Times that someone who works on Apple’s software may have intentionally programmed in the glitch.
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But Haibing Lu, Associate Professor at the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University, thinks the embarrassing error could just be a mistake.
“Voice-to-text systems depend on probabilistic language models that predict words based on sound patterns and context,” Lu said in an email to . “When audio clarity falters or words sound too similar, the system might momentarily pick an odd alternative before trying to auto-correct.”
This mishap highlights both the current technical limits and the bias challenges inherent in large language models, Lu said.
Another expert noted that AI has its limitations, and errors like this one can erode trust in the still-new technology.
“AI is only as smart as the data it’s trained on,” said Scott Stephenson, founder and CEO of Deepgram, an AI platform working in APIs for text-to-speech.
Stephenson said the bug is more evidence that “voice recognition should be about understanding, not assuming,” noting that “the goal isn’t just accuracy, it’s trust.”
Apple has not said exactly when a fix will be issued.
News of the bug emerged during the same week that Apple, the world’s largest tech company, announced it’s investing $500 million in the US, including money for Apple TV Plus content creation and about 20,000 new jobs. The company’s CEO Tim Cook met with President Donald Trump last week.
