iPad Pro touch screen intermittent unresponsive

Similar problem with my 10.5 iPad Pro, hence me finding this thread. It’ll occasionally become unresponsive to touch, often for 2 to 5 seconds. It happens while not doing anything other than perhaps swiping a web page or swiping up for the dock. Not playing games, not doing anything processor intensive.

I sometimes switch back to my 5th generation iPad and have no problems using it all day, even though I’m using the same workflow, iOS version, screen and finger cleaning habits I’d normally be using on my Pro. It’s just a problem with the Pro.

Ironically, I just *added* a Spigen Tempered Glass Screen Protector, and so far... after using it for a few hours... it’s been working fine again. No touch issues. We’ll see if it lasts, but I normally experienced problems every few minutes before.

I tried the suggested Accessibility Settings changes before this, and none of them had any effect.

Using a mouse worked fine, no issues.

Using the Apple Pencil also worked fine.

This is a strange issue and might be App/iOS/Hardware related. On my old iPad (4th gen) I would sometimes get long lags between a touch and a response. It maybe the Pro is significantly faster but this lag never happens on it. Instead of lags, you get dropouts where it it just drops touches. What makes this even stranger is that sometimes you’ll get an audible and visible feedback when typing, but nothing happens on the screen.

It is certainly a software issue otherwise there would be no audible or visible feedback. It could be a background process stealing events such as an app or network process. Most likely, however, it is probably Apple engineers tweaking the process scheduler to improve its performance. Given how many people suspect the pencil maybe involved, the tweak maybe a performance optimization for the Apple pencil. It is common for programmers to drop events from input devices to make the drawing smoother and more responsive. This is just pure conjecture, but deserves some investigation.

Agreed, it is odd and tricky to pinpoint a consistent cause. My iPad Pro worked fine for months after purchase - it’s just been a problem in recent weeks or months. As you say - it’s not a lag, it’s actually non-responsive to touch for a bit. I mostly noticed it when playing YouTube videos in the mini-player mode, so i also suspected maybe it was the app stealing CPU cycles - but adding the glass screen protection completely fixed the problem, including when playing videos. I have no idea why that’d make a difference. Shame, as the extra glass ruins the coolness of the Pro’s laminated screen.

My refurbished replacement was error free for just over two months and it just resumed. Like last time, the problem first appeared in the Messages app, when thumb typing with the tablet held upward at an angle, and like before, it is immediately remediated by activating orientation lock. Disappointed to see it crop up again, but I’ll probably use it mostly on orientation lock and consider myself ahead of the game.

I fondly remember when Apple was the brand whose devices “just worked.”

Apple had better address this iPad pro typing situation. I can’t even write this easily... after all recommendations.

And btw, the tech support in century city Ca is horrible on this issue. They brought me a new iPad..refurbished for sure and said in a threatening tone, I only get one.

what? How about giving me what I paid for in the first place...a working iPad

I am not a happy customer

I am not happy stockholder and sorry to say, my favourite device is loosing my trust.

Some exciting news! I think I found the source of the problem and the solution. I don’t want egg on my face, so I will say it again, I **think** I've found the source of the problem. I will need your help to confirm it.

First, make sure you are having the same touch issue commonly described here. Specifically, you touch something actionable on the screen and nothing happens. You’ll often get an auditory feedback when you type, but nothing shows up on the screen. Eventually you’ll get a response after several tries, but sometimes you will have to reorient the screen, touch another location on the screen or kill the app. If you’re having the same symptoms, then this might work for you.

The solution is very simple, but I don’t know if many of you can live with it. Are you ready......drum roll.....

DELETE THE YOUTUBE APP!!!

That’s it. Will the problem go away 100%? Not really, but at least 95%. I occasionally get a key press drop, but not nearly as often as before. The performance is also much zippier. I was wondering if the iPad Pro was overhyped and even considered downgrading. Now, however, I am seeing significant speed improvements over my old iPad 4.

Try this solution and report back. You may also want to restart your iPad for good measure just to clear out all the evil YouTube bits and bytes that may be still lurking in the system. This might explain why some people don’t have this problem while others do. You’ll have to watch YouTube from the browser, which really sucks.

The touch issue appears to happen on the iPad Pro 12.9” sizes from 2nd Gen and newer. This maybe a software/hardware issue. YouTube is not what I would call an exemplary iOS app. It hooks deep into iOS and it wouldn’t surprise me if it intercepts touch events.

So far so good. The few dropped touches I do get are difficult tell wether I didn’t tap or wether it dropped it.

I don’t use lotions and my hands are not unusually dry or clammy. @katesapp said adding another layer of glass eliminated the issue, which adds to my confusion. If you pay very close attention, the touches are registering. The onscreen keyboard makes a click and the keys highlight, but the keystroke is dropped.

I think we need to be very specific about the symptoms because they could have different causes.

This touch problem has nothing to do with YouTube app. It’s related to faulty apple’s thumb rejection feature. Earlier versions of iOS 12 had this problem fixed in later versions. Again reintroduced in iOS 13.2

I am NOT dumping the YouTube app.

This cannot be the root cause of these intermittent, unresponsive touch screen issues.

AND once again, not every single iPad Pro, across all 4 models years, is being affected by this issue.

I seriously doubt that the YouTube app is the real cause of this issue.

Millions of iPad Pro users have the YouTube app on their iPad Pros, yet I see no evidence of millions of iPad Pro users being affected by this intermittent, unresponsive iPad Pro touch screen issue.

If the affected numbers of iPad Pros were this big or larger, this issue would be making all of the differnt news media and Apple would have responded to this issue by, now.

Apple engineers just seem to have problems pinning down this issue.

They may not be finding a commonality that causes this issue that seemingly affects still a small but, slow-growing minority of iPad Pro models across all 4-5 model years!

Getting rid of the YouTube app is not the true solution to this issue.

FWIW, I do find the unresponsive touch problem occurring mostly when scrolling the YouTube app. It may not be *causing* the problem, it may just be something a scroll more often so notice it more, but who knows.

Dismissing notifications that slide down from the top is also often problematic.

The problem disappeared for days after I applied a glass screen protector. But after a few days, it started happening again, though not as often.

I then removed the screen protector and erased the device and set it up as new (not a restore). And so far it’s been working fine for a week or two.

But at this point, I have no idea what the common factor is. Nothing is consistent. It’s worked fine for days before, then started happening all the time, so while I’m hopeful the reset helped, I’m skeptical too.

I refuse to purchase another iPad Pro as Apple has broken my trust. My iPad Pro 12.9 first generation is still going strong for my wife. It was my original purchase but I gave it to her once I purchased the 2nd generation iPad Pro 12.9. Everything was great for the first 6 months, then random freezing and unresponsive. It got worst over time and towards the end of the warranty I brought it in as I was able to show them a video of the issue I recorded since it would never do it at the repair store. Once they saw the video they gave me a replacement. Replacement worked great for about a month. The warranty had now run out and the only difference is this time instead of freezing the digitizer would stop responding. So the game or application was working in the background but the touch screen would not respond. To get the screen to come back I would close the protector on the screen. Then after about 10 minutes check it and the iPad would continue working where I left off. Eventually I did some updates hoping it would be solved by Apple as this seems like a known issue. The update made it so the screen never responds. I called Apple and they told me it is $600 to replace the screen with digitizer. They offer nothing for trade in as the screen is unresponsive so they offer to recycle it for free. My 256GB iPad Pro 12.9 is only good for parts. I will wait for the iPad Pro 4th generation to come out and after one year if I cannot find anyone having these issues I might purchase again. This needs to be solved as it has to be a known issue and Apple has done nothing to make this right.

I concur with the thoughts in the last post, Apple have lost a customer here. I trusted the brand after a number of phones and two previous iPads which all worked fine. I paid a lot for a high spec iPad Pro which I now regret. I am disgusted to be offered a second hand one in exchange.

Barry

Yes, Sinizar, it is frustrating to have “upgraded” to iPad Pro with this issue, now on the second device, when all my previous “budget” iPads, and currently my son’s budget iPad (MP2G2LL/A) from two years ago have had no problems. Text input! What could be more a basic and essential function?

[Edited by Moderator]