Apple is addressing a technical glitch in its voice-to-text system that briefly caused the word “Trump” to appear when users dictated the word “racist.”
On Tuesday, some iPhone users reported that when they used Apple’s dictation feature to say “racist,” the system initially typed “Trump” before automatically correcting itself.
Apple acknowledged the issue and stated it was related to a bug in its speech recognition model. “We are aware of an issue with the speech recognition model that powers Dictation and we are rolling out a fix today,” an Apple spokesperson said.
The company explained that its speech recognition system occasionally suggests incorrect words with similar phonetic structures before quickly correcting them. However, Apple did not clarify why the system associated “racist” with the name of former U.S. President Donald Trump.
Trump’s Reaction to Apple News
The glitch surfaced shortly after Apple announced a $500 billion investment in U.S. facilities, a move that Trump praised as a sign of confidence in his tariff policies. Earlier this month, he had imposed a 10% tariff on Chinese imports, affecting Apple, which manufactures many of its products in China.
Trump took to Truth Social on Monday, writing in an all-caps post that Apple’s investment showed “faith in what we are doing, without which, they wouldn’t be investing ten cents. Thank you, (CEO) Tim Cook and Apple.”
However, a day later, Trump criticized Apple after its shareholders rejected a proposal to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives at its annual meeting. Apple’s board had recommended voting against the proposal, stating that the company remains committed to fostering an inclusive work environment.
Following the vote, Trump lashed out on Truth Social, urging Apple to abandon its DEI policies entirely, rather than making adjustments.
