iPad Pro touch screen intermittent unresponsive

Never post ANY personal contact info in a public support community of any kind.

You are not addressing Apple here, anyways.

We are all just Apple product customers/users here, just like you.

I am sorry to learn that you are experiencing touch screen issues with your 2017 iPad Pro model.

I believe that your iPad Pro may have contracted an serious, hardware and/or software related, intermittent, unresponsive touch screen issue/problem/bug/flaw.

See this Apple support link for some additional help, if needed.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201406

Per the instructions in the link above, I strongly suggest you call contact Apple support about this issue.

This is a well known issue here in these iPad support communities.

This intermittent, unresponsive touch screen issue affects a continuing, growing minority of iPad Pro users/models across all 4 years of iPad Pro models, as well as the new 2019 10.5 inch screen iPad Air 3, which is based from the 2017, 10.5 inch screen iPad Pro models.

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.

Per the directions found in the very first link in my post reply, I strongly suggest/advise you call contact Apple support on this intermittent, unresponsive touch screen issue.

Sorry that your 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!

That's great news. The notes about iOS 12.2 don't say anything about fixing touch issues, but often Apple quietly addresses something with little to no fanfare at all.

In case you're interested, here are the fixes which were included in 12.2:

• Supports Air Quality Index in Maps for US, UK, and India
• Includes information in Settings on how much time remains on your device’s warranty period
• Supports real-time text (RTT) for phone calls made through a nearby iPhone on iPad and iPod Touch
• Displays a “5G E” icon for iPhone 8 and later, iPad Pro 12.9-inch (3rd generation) or iPad Pro 11-inch indicating that users are in an area where AT&T’s 5G Evolution network is available
• Improves quality of audio recordings in Messages
• Improves stability and performance of Apple TV Remote on iOS
• Fixes an issue that prevented some missed calls from appearing in Notification Center
• Addresses an issue where a badge notification could appear on Settings even though no action is needed
• Addresses an issue in Settings > General > iPhone Storage where the storage size of some large apps, the System category, and the Other category in the storage bar graph could be incorrect
• Fixes an issue that could cause Voice Memos to automatically play back recordings after connecting to a car Bluetooth device
• Resolves an issue that could cause Voice Memos to temporarily prevent renaming a recording

TLDR: Let me start by saying I had very similar issues with my 11” iPad Pro, took it in to Apple, the person helping me determined it was mouse likely a faulty touchscreen and replaced it without any further issue. The replacement 11” iPad Pro has not exhibited any problems.

One of the reasons it took me so long to take it in was the lack of conclusive reports online in places like this that any had gotten their issues resolved, events with a replacement unit. But at least so far, getting a replacement worked for my case. So, if you are seeing touch problems, you talk to Apple about it.

The single factor which made it less than perfect service was that, since it’s not a stock config, I had to return to the Apple Store to swap out my faulty one about four days later when the replacement unit came in, rather than allowing it to be delivered to my house and then shipping the faulty one back.

I ca your issue is the same as mine, but my 11” iPad Pro began to show symptoms like those mentioned at least a month or two after having bought it. It may have been the result of one of several drops, but I don’t know if the issues coincided with one of those of not, and, aside from smushes in the aluminum frame edges, there was no apparent damage. The Apple staffer I spoke with noted the dings, but showed no concern about them.

The iPad would intermittently stop recognizing touch, which would temporarily be fixed by a sleep/wake, but would soon start again. I found turning off Bluetooth would cause the problem to go away but only temporarily.

Whatever the issue was, I made an appointment with Apple, told them all I had done to try to determine the cause... I’ve put the notes I took in with me at the end of this post.

Tim H.

—————————-

iPad stops responding to touch when using my finger.

• • Contacted support 3 to 4 months ago. April or earlier.
  • Support had me reset network settings and do a hard restart, after which the problem was not immediately apparent. 
  • Said if reoccurred, contact support or go to an Apple Store...
  • This issue has reoccurred across multiple OS updates and numerous restarts. 
  • I’ve reset network settings and done a hard restart. These offer only temporary reprieve.
  • Finger touches seem to work sometimes if I press slowly and very solidly.
  • When a touch is rejected in the text field, I am sometimes still able to press and hold on the spacebar and use the soft trackpad to move the cursor.
  • When unlocking iPad, the symptom often shows itself as my being able to begin sliding up the lock screen, then it slides back down, as if the touch is no longer detected. Putting iPad to sleep and then waking it, no matter how briefly, temporarily rectifies the problem.
  • When this problem is occurring, it feels as if any touch on the front of the iPad, even at the very edge of the glass face nearest the frame, makes the screen stop responding to finger touches.
  • I’ve had 8 iPads and the previous generation Pencil and never experienced this, nor did I experience it with this iPad when I first got it.

When it began

• • It started months ago. It being my primary computer, along with difficulty diagnosing, made me delay getting it fixed...  
  • Hoped a software update would deliver a fix, but have heard (from a few others who seem to have run into this) the latest iOS 13 beta does not.

Apple Pencil and the issue

There’s a connection between Apple Pencil and this issue.

• • Temporarily fixed by sleeping then waking iPad or entering airplane mode. 
  • In all case where screen doesn’t respond to finger, it responds to Pencil.
  • When Bluetooth is on, but Apple Pencil is not connected, as shown in Bluetooth settings, I do not experience the issue.

Other possibly relevant facts

• • Double Tap is off in Settings: Pencil. (I frequently trigger it by accident)
  • I use Procreate and have “Disable Touch actions” turned “On” in Procreate  prefs.
  • I have two Apple Pencils which I use interchangeably

Same problems with my 11" iPad Pro touch problems

https://youtu.be/sVMdtu7VcfU

• Rebooting helps for 1 day
• Fresh reinstall without using a backup helped for 1 week
• Adaptive touch didn't help at all
• Currently trying disabling Tap to Wake ... 2 days in, so far so good 🤞

This iPad is the first one of 5 iPads that I hate. Considering to downgrade to the newest iPad Air ... or Pixelbook 😭

Did your iPad Pro touch screen issues start before or after first installing iOS 12?

• Got the iPad Pro 11" with iOS 12

Some believe it could be a heat related issue.

• My main apps usage when this is happening are Facebook, Apollo ( reddit client ), Tweetbot and Instagram. So nothing demanding too much cpu or gpu.

Some believe it is related to a bug or issue with the screen and Apple Pencil interfering with touch in iOS 12.

• I don't have a pencil

Have you updated to the latest iOS 12.4?

• I am always at the latest version with autoupdate, but I am not sure this one installed yet, I will check at lunch.

Hi

i have the same issue with my ipad pro 12.9 2017 ( 2nd generation )

and i found some weird things about this problem

1. if you keep your ipad with one hand on apple logo on the back , the problem rarely happens and i don’t know why
2. i think that is because of battery issue and going worse when tablet get warm ... because i connected my ipad to pc and checked the battery health on iMazing desktop application and keep working with ipad when it was connected ... i found that battery health that display is not stable and is between 63 to 82 percent ... and suffered from the issue ... then i think maybe it is because of battery calibration ... then i tried to calibrate the battery ... and it get so much better but didn’t completely disappear ... and my first theory is that something affect on battery after a while that you buy and work with an ipad because i read comments and saw that problem appear after a while and maybe it was an ios problem but i’m not sure ... the next theory is that synchronizing problem with two pieces of battery on ipad pros

i’m really annoyed by this problem and maybe trade with a surface pro 4

It’s not ridiculous

1. There are many of people who didn’t post anything like me that follow many threads for weeks to find a solution and didn’t post until now
2. many people who had an Apple store in their cities directly talk with Apple’s employees
3. How that people after change their ipads for 3 or 4 times always faced with this problem ? It’s unbelievable that they are such bad chance people
4. if you believe that the problem happened for few percent of iPad Pros then why you didn’t update yet ?

I had the same problem with an IPAD PRO 10.5 - Soft: IpadOS 13.1.2 - Couple of points...

1. Accessibility its listed by itself NOT under General
2. In Accessibility, touch "Touch"
3. Touch, "Touch Accommodations"
4. Turn on, "Touch Accommodations" - accept disclaimer warning...
5. ...and... if "hold Duration" shows 0.10, turn it off.

I have not had the lack of sensitivity problem since I made these changes....

I had the same problem with an IPAD PRO 10.5 - Soft: IpadOS 13.1.2 - Couple of points...

1. Accessibility its listed by itself NOT under General
2. In Accessibility, touch "Touch"
3. Touch, "Touch Accommodations"
4. Turn on, "Touch Accommodations" - accept disclaimer warning...
5. ...and... if "hold Duration" shows 0.10, turn it off.

I have not had the lack of sensitivity problem since I made these changes....

This issue started appearing one month after I bought my 2018 iPad Pro 12.9. About every second day I had intermittent touch issues, exactly as described here. I didn't want to exchange it to a refurb one, as I thought the new one would exhibit the same problems.

I tried a lot of things, one of these worked. I haven't had a single touch issue for 3 months now:

1. I no longer use the charger which came with the iPad, instead I'm using my old iPad Air2's charger. It's slower, but does the job too.
2. I turned off Tap to Wake.

I don't know which one was the remedy, but the problem which appeared every second day, hasn't appeared for months now, so I dare to risk that it won't happen again. I don't know which workaround fixed the issue, but I don't want to debug anymore, as I really enjoy a flawlessly working iPad. I hope this helps you all.

I got the same problem on my iPad Pro 10.5 (2017). I tried:

• enabling touch accommodation
• disabling "Share iPad Analytics"

nothing helped. I used it without a case, and I had a crack over the screen. I had iOS 12.0 there. I use Apple pencil, and it always works with it.

Then I updated it to the latest iPadOS 13.1 through MacBook. Usually I do this directly on the iPad, but this time I updated it through Mac OS Catalina. It didn't help, but it seemed to be a bit better to me. Fewer freezings, but may be it's only my perception.

Then I updated it to 13.1.2 through MacBook again. And it didn't help also, but it started to freeze less.

Then I updated to 13.1.3 through MacBook again and the issue almost gone away. I saw it rarely. Then I noticed that the issue goes away if I put iPad on a towel when use it. Then I bought a cheap smart case and the problem finally went away!

I still have touch accommodation enabled and share iPad analytics disabled. I'm glad that after so long time I managed to cope this issue.

To be registered:

iPadOS 13.2 still does not solve the problem on my Ipad Pro 2nd gen - 12.9.

On Procreate:

• Turn On Bluetooth;
• Connect Apple Pencil;
• Run Procreate;
• After seconds.... 1 minute, sometimes: touchscreen stops working (comp[letely blind) and the Apple Pencil becomes intermittent;
• Only Apple Pencil works after that... and
• I need to turn off the Bluetooth for the touchscreen to work again.

Here is what a refurbished iPad is.

From the Apple Website.

What goes into a refurbished iPad.

All refurbished iPad models come with a new battery, new outer shell, are backed by a one-year warranty, have free delivery and returns, and also include:

• Full functional testing, genuine Apple part replacements (if necessary), and a thorough cleaning
• The original Operating System or a more recent version1

THIS WORKS FOR ME AND I WILL POST EVERYTHING I KNOW AND DO OVER THE NEXT WEEK.

To clarify remove the SIM card. I’m on my second iPad Pro 12" with cellular data option, 512mb, no pen. Apple replaced the first. Both units acted the same.

1. reset settings just to get settings on a clean slate. It’s not a fix but just do it.
2. no need to do a full reset through a PC. You can if you want.
3. update to iOS 14.
4. Delete any unused apps. Google products may burden the system and make it worse.
5. Definitely don’t use any ad blockers only use Safari settings.
6. I do believe a glass cover makes it worse and I did take mine off, but it’s not the Holy Grail
7. I have a UAG rubber case that seems to help, a case will help it’s a good case
8. If your aluminum case is bent in the slightest there’s no hope.
9. After long uses invert your holding position as to counter any minuscule temporary warp given to the screen.
10. Cleaning the screen may help a bit but it’s not the problem.
11. completely disable Siri as a whole and in every app turn it off
12. Messing with accessibility features won’t help. Leave them off.
13. A brighter screen DEFINITELY helps when the touch problem is occurring.
14. add a new keyboard and delete the old
15. manually enable Bluetooth do not leave it running in the background.
16. In your 5g WiFi network set DNS to manual and type in both open dns settings. Google open dns.
17. turn off background app refresh
18. turn off analytics of any kind
19. don’t mess with experimental features
20. MORE TO COME I’LL POST SAFARISETTINGS

After months of living with this issue, i am 100% sure it's hardware related (at least in my case). I noticed that when the ipad becomes a little hot the issue starts.

To force raising the temperature, i would run a gpu demanding app/game and in a couple minutes i start losing touch.

Locking the ipad for a couple seconds, then unlocking it (which cools it does for a bit) would bring back touch responsiveness but only for a few seconds, and the cycle repeats.

I have mentioned that earlier in a post, however if i keep the ipad unlocked when touch is no longer responsive and keep the app/game running, the ipad shuts down (i also hear a blip from the speakers).

Once it reboots, i get the attached screen a couple seconds after the apple logo screen appears.

Anyone experiencing that?