Open Radar

 
Summary:
When iOS and/or OS X Keyboard preferences are changed such that a keyboard shortcut is created (on one device) with certain punctuation, particularly the @ sign, this shortcut will become effectively PERMANENT and IMPOSSIBLE TO DELETE on ALL DEVICES.

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Have an iCloud account and use it to sign in to multiple OS X & iOS devices, including settings sync.

2. On any of these devices, create a text shortcut from e.g. “r@” or “r@a” to “reproducible@apple.com”. The important part is that there needs to be single letters and an “at” sign in the shortcut.

3. Wait for it to sync to all your devices and test the shortcut. (NOTE: The shortcut does NOT work work, but that is a SEPARATE yet POSSIBLY RELATED BUG. For example, typing “r vivics” MAY OR MAY NOT autocorrect to “reproducible@apple.com civics” despite the fact the shortcut was NOT typed and SHOULD NOT be triggered.) But for this step, just make sure every device shows the text expansion snippet for “r@”.

4. Having seen your shortcut propagate to all your devices, DELETE the shortcut from one device… or ALL devices. It won’t matter, the expected and actual will diverge regardless.

Expected Results:
The shortcut should be gone forever.

Actual Results:
The shortcut will never die. Typically within 24 hours, your devices will all once again have the unwanted text replacement shortcut. All of them.

Version:
iCloud Apple ID: contact@alanhogan.com
iOS version: 8.4 (and previous, including every stable version of iOS 8.x)
OS X version: 10.10.4 (14E46) (and previous, including every stable version of OS X 10.10)

Notes:
I have attempted to remove the offending shortcuts from every device multiple times, including all within a few minutes of each other, and have observed “success” but only for a short period of time before the accursed shortcuts reappear. It is disheartening, especially combined with the other bug. (I will attempt to file the other bug separately and cross-reference these issues.)

Configuration:
Multiple Apple devices including 3rd(?) gen iPad Mini; iPhone 5S; and 2010 and 2015 year MacBook Pro laptops.

See also:
Bug #21654125, the related bug regarding erroneous text shortcut expansion.