iPad Pro touch screen intermittent unresponsive

It's the turning off "Tap to wake". If you read through this thread, lots of people recommend to turn it off. Have turned it off myself several months ago and haven't had an issue since.

Had this issue with new 12.9 iPad Pro. Tried everything mentioned above, including reboot/redownloading of hardware, not just software. Apple support online not helpful. Visited store. Of course, the problem didn't happen with tech. Replaced with reconditioned iPad Pro; 2 weeks newer model. Unlike with original iPad, I did not update to 12.1.4 iOS, choosing to stay with 12.1.3 . Have not experienced the problem since. I think the problem lies with 12.1.4, either inherent or in conjunction with 3rd party apps. As near as I can recall, the problem didn't start until after I had updated to 12.1.4. Can't swear to it, but fairly sure.

I can confirm, that it happened with my 2gen iPad Pro 12.9 and it also happens on the latest 3gen iPad Pro 12.9. It is very annoying and makes serious use of the iPad very difficult. I noticed it happens when many apps are open in the background. It seems when closing most/all background apps, problem disappears.

I feel like the probleme is from the 120Hz refresh rate display on iOS 12

I’m not having anymore that freezing since I limited the frame rate at 60 on...

Settings / General / Accessibility / Display Accommodation / and toggle on the limit frame rate

Check a few post replies back.

Have you tried toggling OFF the Tap to Wake feature and restart/reset your iPad Pro.

Seems toggling OFF the Tap to Wake feature fixes the unresponsive touch issue entirely

I have tried everything from restoring, to resetting, to rebooting, touch accommodations etc, and the one an hour in that seems to have fixed it for me is limiting the frame rate to 60 fps in accessibility under display. Thought I would share for anyone else who had the issue.

unfortunately I don’t think lowering the frame rate solves the issue as I had tried that several times earlier this year with no luck. Only thing that’s completely fixed it for me is disabling tap to wake and then restarting the device. Never had an issue since doing that 2 months ago. Before that I was experiencing issues since November last year.

Updated to 12.4.1 the other week. Switched iPad off and back on again. Truthfully, turning off ‘tap to wake’ has been working fine for me and continues to work even after the latest update. I don’t miss that function at all now.

I have a 12.9” 2nd gen pro. Have had the issue for a few months. A factory reset would improve the situation and then it would slowly start again. I just installed the latest version of IPadOS and the problem persisted. I loved my iPad because of the ProMotion display, but started hating it when it “upgraded” to a NoMotion display...

While reading about the problem with my iPad on a stable desk, I noticed there were no issues with the screen responding, however as soon as I migrated to my comfy lazy boy chair, I started seeing issues almost immediately. The difference seems that the constant moving of the iPad with it resting on my lap causes the gyro to maybe make it unresponsive?

Anyway, I disabled the “Shake to undo” feature in Touch Accessibility and it seems to be helping. I’m thinking it can become over sensitive and would make sense that it would trigger during movement intensive activities such as typing or just resting on an unstable platform like my belly.

I also locked the orientation. I always use the same orientation so that seems like a no brainer to reduce the amount of sensor inputs the OS needs to monitor.

Anyway, hope this helps.

You know?

Another thing I never asked users/people to try that I always, ALWAYS have toggled ON and never gave it a second thought.

To optimise the performance of all of my iPads, I disable and enable certain settings in the Settings app.

One I have never mentioned to try, which, also, has an effect on the iPad's screen, is all of the iOS motion graphics eye candy.

It's both CPU, GPU and RAM intensive enough on IPads.

I minimise all of this by going into the Settings app and toggling ON Reduce Motion.

If NO one here ever thinks to use this feature, try toggling ON Reduce Motion to see if it makes any difference with the touch screen issues.

The other plus to toggling ON Reduce Motion is your iPad should respond much faster as the CPU, GPU and RAM do not have to process hardly any of the iOS motion graphic nonsense, any longer.

Try this, just out of curiosity.

You may be on to something. I was having serious problems with every other touch not registering. I did have a pencil registered. Even with Bluetooth turned off I had still had the problem.

I turned BT on and unpaired my pencil. The touch problem instantly went away.

Note: The 'adaptive' setting discussed earlier in the thread was turned on with no effect. It is still on.

Hi, I would like to let everyone know a solution that just worked for me. I have owned every IPad thats been released but only have this problem on the ipad pro 11 inch. Its driven me crazy to the point that I purchased the new apple pencil just to interface with my $2000 device. The ipad didn’t start out this way and thats why i’ve felt that its always been a software issue instead of faulty hardware. In fact as I type this its amazing because its the first thing I’ve been able to type on this keyboard that is longer than 2 words where I don’t have to hit keys over and over again to make them show up. On to my solution.

the fix that worked for me was to turn off tap to wake. The moment i turned it off all my stupid touch screen unresponsiveness stopped immediately.

Go to Settings > General > Accessibility > touch > find “Tap to Wake” and turn that OFF

basically everything under accessibility > touch is turned off in case its a combination of settings. I truly hope this helps some other people. Even if it helps just one. Its driven me crazy for months and it feels amazing to have this **** thing working again. I was starting to believe at some points that something was wrong with the tips of my fingers.

Problem Fixed by switching cases!

I tried removing the case I was using and the problem went away. The case was an inexpensive transparent TPU plastic trifold flip case. Since then, I switched to a Logitech keyboard case a couple days ago and the problem has not come back. Could the TPU allow static buildup that interferes with the capacitive touch sensors.

Some background: I was having problems with the screen on my 2017 iPad Pro 12.9" going non-responsive for 5-15 seconds every minute or two, sometimes several times a minute. I am on my second iPad... the first was replaced with a new tablet under warranty at the 11 mo for the touch problem. After replacement, the problem came back after a ~month. The first tablet worked perfectly in the old problematic case for over 6 months and the second worked perfectly in the old case for a month. Now that I think about it, both tablets started to have touch problems as winter started... Perhaps it is related to dry air and the increased static charges that come with it.

Try removing the case you have your tablet in, turn it off for awhile, and then try using it for a few hours out of the case.

Does anyone have the touch problem while not in a case? Have you encountered the problem in humid conditions (+60%)?

The best you can do is to continue to alert Apple to this growing issue and hammer the Apple iPad feedback pages mutiple times on this issue.

The only way to get Apple to, DIRECTLY, listen to you is to use their feedback portion of their website.

iPad Feedback

http://www.apple.com/feedback/ipad.html

Cognizant Apple employees read ALL feedback generated from all of the various feedback pages and transfers the data to the proper and responsible Apple teams and personnel , but NO Apple employees will ever respond with any type of direct, individual replies from the feedback you post.

You can post as much multiple feedback about this issue any time.

The more users that post product feedback about any product issue, the faster Apple is made aware and starts working on a fix/solution for a future software update.

As I stated, this intermittent, unresponsive and unresolved iPad Pro touch screen issue has plagued a small, but growing minority of iPad Pro users across all 4 years of iPad Pro models for over 18 months, now!

Also, I STRONGLY suggest contacting/reaching out to Apple Product support and services on this larger screen iPad intermittent, unresponsive touch screen issue and you have to escalate this issue to higher levels of Apple senior customer support personnel to get their attentions on this issue.

Tap on the first link below and scroll down some to get to the Apple Product Support section and phone numbers for your location/region.

https://www.apple.com/contact/

OR

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201232

This is a serious, unresolved hardware/software problem that has been plaguing a growing minority of iPad Pro users, across all model years, for the past 18 months, or so.

For iPad Pro users, this intermittent, unresponsive touch screen issue started waaaay back with either a late iOS 11 update OR with the introduction of iOS 12.

There is NO resolution for this from Apple, to date.

No way to know whether Apple has any type of fix/solution coming soon, or not.

Sorry that you iPad Air 3/iPad Pro has contracted this issue.

You are now part of small, but still very much a growing minority of larger screen iPad users that have been affected by this intermittent, unresponsive larger iPad touch screen problem/bug/flaw.

Sorry & Best of Luck to You!

So I have had my iPad Pro 12.9 for about 2.5 years. About 6 months to year into my ownership the iPad screen started to become unresponsive. Initially every now and then and then about a year ago it started getting a light leak along the left hand side of the screen. Initially only in a couple of spots but by now it’s down the entire iPad screen. The unresponsiveness had got pretty bad as well. I would try to scroll in Safari and would have to swipe up to 10 times before anything happened. Forget about writing anything. A quick shut down of screen helped, but only for a few seconds. Basically I was about to ditch the whole thing. The iPad in my opinion and for my use is the best thing Apple has ever produced, but I had pretty much given up. This is until...

I had read somewhere where a guy mentioned the Smart Cover as a possible issue. So I tried removing it, using the iPad on its own. It worked. As soon as I put the cover back on, the unresponsiveness returned. Sometimes sooner, sometimes later. It also dawned on me that the light leak is on the same side as the magnetic strip for the cover. I can’t be a coincidence.

Anyway I’ve ditched the leather Smart Cover I had and the iPad is working as normal again after nearly 2 years of malfunctioning. I haven’t taken it into Apple yet to discuss the issue, although I’m sure they’re aware of it.

I would highly recommend trying this, if you have one of these smart covers.