Justin Bieber has a complaint for Apple, and he isn’t whispering it.The singer took to Instagram and X on Friday to vent about one tiny iPhone feature that, according to him, causes huge irritation. It is the dictation button, the one many users accidentally tap while typing. Most people grumble and move on. Bieber, however, chose a more dramatic route.
“If I hit this dictation button after sending a text and it beeps and stops my music one more time, I'm gonna find everyone at Apple and put them in a rear naked choke hold,” he wrote, making it very clear how strongly he feels. He added that even turning off dictation does not help, because he somehow still manages to hit the voice note option. “The send button should not have multiple functions in the same spot,” he said, sharing a screenshot of his iMessage screen to make his point.
His frustration resonated with a lot of people online, many of whom admitted they also end up tapping the wrong button. The post even caught the attention of Ian Silber, the head of product design at OpenAI, who jokingly invited Bieber to their weekly design reviews.
The outburst comes at a time when Apple is already having a turbulent week. On Monday, the company announced that John Giannandrea, its senior vice president for machine learning and AI strategy, would be stepping down and eventually retiring in 2026. Two days later, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed that Alan Dye, Apple’s long-time vice president of human interface design, would be joining Meta’s Reality Labs to lead its new creative studio. And on Thursday, Apple confirmed that Lisa Jackson, who heads environment, policy and social initiatives, will retire early next year. Kate Adams, Apple’s general counsel, will also leave in 2025.
For a company known for polished design and tight control over user experience, the criticism could not have come at a more inconvenient time. Apple is still seen as a giant in the tech world, but its slower shift toward AI has left it scrambling to keep pace with rivals like OpenAI, Google, and Meta.
And now, thanks to Justin Bieber, even the dictation button is under scrutiny.
Discover the latest Business News, Sensex, and Nifty updates. Obtain Personal Finance insights, tax queries, and expert opinions on Moneycontrol or download the Moneycontrol App to stay updated!
