Happy Friday! What a week—for New Things AND for new things in tech. Apple announced that Tim Cook will step down as CEO in September and hand over the reins to John Ternus.
OpenAI rolled out new GPT 5.5 and Image 2.0 models. Meta said it would lay off 10% of its workforce. And somewhere in the middle of all that, I found myself thinking about why my ducking iPhone keyboard won’t just type what I want it to. That’s my Thing of the Week.
Plus, how to make fake gadget patent images with OpenAI’s new image model and our first Old Thing submission! Casey Neistat’s 2003 Sony CLIÉ PEG-UX50.
Lots of my peers have written sharp pieces about Tim Cook’s departure as CEO and John Ternus’s ascension to the Apple throne. Here’s my main question: John Ternus, can you turn-us the iPhone autocorrect around?
If I had written that with my iPhone keyboard, it would be more like: John Tennis, can you turndown this applet autocorrect a round?
Over the last few months, I’ve noticed more autocorrect mishaps on my iPhone 17 Pro. And I’m not alone. (I’ve also had some nasty battery drain after recent iOS 26 updates, but that’s another story for another time.) Plenty of people have complained to me about autocorrect problems. And I see the folks I’m texting with quickly correcting messages because their iPhone mangled the message.
To be fair, Apple addressed part of the problem in iOS 26.4. I’ll get to that below. But to suggest iPhone autocorrect is now fixed—or works as well as it once did—is like suggesting Siri is a genius.
In fact, if you want to talk about Apple being behind in AI, start here—not with its need for LLMs or futuristic AI gadgets. But there’s hope in a few different forms already at hand. Some things you can do now, some things are on the horizon.
With iOS 26.4 released a few weeks ago, Apple improved keyboard accuracy when typing quickly. Basically, when you typed fast and tapped a key, it looked like the phone registered it but sometimes the character never actually made it into the word. That led to some truly unhinged autocorrect.
So first, do the update dance. Go to Settings > General > Software Update. It should help. Plenty of people on social media have pointed out improvements. But even after the update, I was still having issues. The thing that helped the most? Resetting my keyboard dictionary.
Your iPhone learns from how you type. But sometimes it learns the wrong lessons: bad spellings, weird shortcuts, names, typos, whatever chaos you’ve been feeding it. To wipe the slate clean, go to: Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone > Reset > Reset Keyboard Dictionary.
It looks scary to do this, but it’s OK. It won’t reset your entire phone. It just clears the custom keyboard memory it has built up over time. It’s made a big difference for me over the last few weeks. You can also always add words you use frequently to your iPhone’s dictionary. (Settings > General > Keyboard > Text Replacement.)
If you’ve used third-party keyboards like Whispr Flow or Grammarly, you know Apple is behind in making its keyboard smarter with AI.
Whispr Flow’s keyboard is all about voice input, and its speech-to-text model is far better than Apple’s. I’ve also been using Grammarly’s iOS keyboard, which brings more AI writing help directly into the keyboard.
The problem is I still find most third-party iOS keyboards annoying. Switching between keyboards is clunky, and there can be privacy tradeoffs since your text often has to be processed by that third party.
Which brings me to the reports that Apple is working on major improvements to autocorrect and its keyboard in iOS 27 later this year. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman says the new system will be more like Grammarly’s. An Apple spokesman declined to comment on the company’s future plans.
If Apple can expand Apple Intelligence to fix the things we actually use—autocorrect, Siri—then I’ll upgrade farts fast. See? This is a problem.
Watch my quick video on the best way to fix your iPhone autocorrect here.
Generate Your Own AI Fake Patents
I have a weird obsession with looking at tech patents. The diagrams! The labels! I’ve dreamed of filing my own, despite having approximately zero engineering ability.
That fantasy got a lot more realistic this week when OpenAI launched ChatGPT Images 2.0, powered by gpt-image-2. The biggest upgrade: It’s much better at rendering text. Earlier image models could make nice pictures but then spell “Main Street” like “Mani Streat.” OpenAI is pitching this version as much more useful for posters, layouts, brochures, comics and other text-heavy visuals.
Will this create even more (and more convincing) AI slop? Absolutely. But it’s also fun—and, once in a while, actually useful. I love making fake patent filings for inventions I desperately want to exist. Like SmartPunch, a device that literally punches you in your big dumb face when you doomscroll or use AI for stupid stuff. Yes, including making fake patent images. Here’s the prompt to start with:
Create a detailed, patent-style illustration of a fictional invention that solves a modern annoyance. Include labeled parts, arrows, figure numbers and clean, legible text. Make it look official, but with a humorous twist. Example: “SmartPunch,” a device that punches you when you’ve spent too much time on your phone and when you’ve asked AI to do dumb things like spell check an email.
If you make a great fake patent, email it to me here or share on social. I’m @joannastern everywhere.
Name? Casey Neistat
What’s your old thing? Sony CLIÉ PEG-UX50
What year is it from? 2003
Why do you love your old thing? This product came from a time when technological capability grossly outpaced the cultural understanding of where technology fit in. It runs Palm OS, because Palm had utility—contacts and calendar, not much beyond that. So Sony took that and thought: Let’s change the form factor, make it feel like a little computer, put a full keyboard on it, add all these other antennas. This one had Wi-Fi in 2003. It has a rotating camera so you can pivot the lens to your face and take a selfie.
Finding one that works today is nearly impossible. I bought this and made it work. I had to get in there, do some soldering on the PCBs, get a new third-party battery and remove some corrosion. Finding an actual Sony OEM telescoping stylus was also incredibly challenging. But it works as it did in 2003.
Want your old thing featured here? Submit a photo and entry to [email protected]. Include your answers to all of the above, plus the emotional damage this gadget may have caused.
This newsletter was written and curated by Joanna Stern and Adele Lowitz. The amazing New Things branding was designed by Brainstorm. Have a great weekend! 🕶️
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