That's because it used to be a simple Markov model back then.
Today's implementation is using more advanced ML techniques ;)
Compliments of product managers, engineers, etc making millions and millions of dollars to produce a much worse end user experience, if it wasn’t painful enough
Sounds like a third-party keyboard opportunity: “Just like the standard Apple keyboard but not ML”.
Yes, it was a solved problem. Then they had to figure out how to utilize the ML features of their chips... and fucked it all up.
It's been getting noticeably worse with every update. iOS 26 was a significant step down from whatever version was before that.