iPad Pro touch screen intermittent unresponsive

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.

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.

Icdvtrvt wrote:

I finally gave up and turned my 1st gen iPad Pro 9.7 in into Best Buy for $155 and turned around and purchased a new iPad gen 7 with 128 GB. It wasn’t worth the hassle and “try this and that”, it should just work no matter what case you have.

Actually, you got a pretty decent upgrade from a 9.7 inch screen iPad Pro, minus the laminated display, Tru-tone display, better iPhone quality cameras and that much better 4-speaker audio setup!

The pros of the 2019, 7th gen iPad is you got a 1/2 inch larger screen on the diagonal.

A faster A10 processor instead of the A9X.

You got an extra 1 GB of RAM for a total of 3 GBs of RAM and it still has support for that 1st gen Apple Pencil and the Apple smart keyboard!

That was a pretty smart iPad upgrade!

I bought my wife the 128 GBs, WiFi ONLY version, 7th gen iPad as she basically has a close equivalent to an older iPad Pro or the 2019 iPad Air 3.

Bought her an Adonit Note stylus and Zugu case for her 7th gen iPad.

The Adonit Note is great as it does not need a Bluetooth connection, but has palm rejection circuitry built-in and you can write and draw on the 7th gen iPad with hand/palm right on the 7th gen iPad’s screen, no issues, at all! This stylus really works great and as advertised!

This 7th gen iPad was a HUGE upgrade for her from a nearly 8-year old iPad 3rd generation.

She loves her Zugu case for this iPad, too!

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!

TOUCH ISSUES ARE RELATED TO WIFI CONNECTION ISSUES, PARTICULARLY TO WIFI INTERFERENCE.

It has nothing to do with internet speed. iPads are very sensitive to wifi channel congestion and radio interference. This is specific to iPad and especially the large screen versions. This sensitivity manifests itself in touch related problems and poor browser function. iPads with cellular capabilities may also have this issue when around interference.

This issue is hard to pinpoint because other devices connected to the same source may not have this issue, for example an iPhone. In other words iPads are highly sensitive to any kind of radio I reference wether it be channel congestion or a nearby electronic device.

The iPad needs a clean source of WiFi. Tweak your modem and router first. iPad seems to work better on 5ghz and WPA2. Change your DNS to manual...OpenDNS. If your able to shut down 2.4ghz. Set your 5ghz to n/ac. Change your channel selection to manual and find the least interference. I’m using 156 for 5ghz. Set your router firewall to low or even off, then work your way back once it’s browsing properly.

If you have cellular data that too can cause problems. Just having the chip in the iPad can cause more problems even if your cellular data is not activated. The iPad had terrible all around connectivity.

Once you tweak it out it will always be weaker when other household members are on the network, yet you can get it working smooth. This is not a one time deal the iPad is very emotional and sensitive.

It has nothing to do with bandwidth capability. More bandwidth won’t help.

The first sign of this problem is keyboard touch issues. Remember, it has nothing to do with the keyboard.... it’s encountering interference.

This explanation Is not consistent with the behavior of mine. The freeze will happen with WiFi on or off, cellular on or off, home, work, on the road, many different environments. Unplugging the lightning cable immediately fixes the freeze issue (temporarily) as does rebooting. When it happens, the left side will freeze and often the right side will still function

yes, exactly. 3-4 months before the problem.

I had a completely identical situation with two different devices: the iPad Pro 10.5, which I returned to the store for this reason. and also with iPad Air 3 which I bought for my child. after 3 months of this problem, I decided to continue using it for a while, but (fortunately or not) there was another problem with a spot on the screen and I replaced the device in the service.

I suspect that that absolutely all modern iPad Air and Pro have this problem. apparently most people tolerate this fact.

Now doesn’t the 3-4 months to first occurrence, followed by gradual decline in function afterward, strongly suggest a hardware issue? It does to me.

Additional thought: it’s very common in other big ticket retail sales, such as automobiles, to have a flawed part or system go out the factory door. Failure of this part or system may oftentimes be well known at the service level but never admitted at the corporate level. The reason for this should be obvious.

I won’t do without my iPad for the foreseeable future, but I will definitely be buying Apple Care+ on my next device as well. An update cycle of 2.5 years is about normal for me anyway. I don’t like having to buy it but what choice do I have?

I can’t echo your experience at all. They took me seriously, checked it, worked me through various resets, and when nothing worked they replaced my device. I’ve bought a lot of stuff from them over the years and I am always polite but firm when I interact with their support. Not saying you are otherwise. I just can’t square your story with mine, except for the problem itself.

Exactly. Additionally, as I've stated before if the screen freezes while charging and you unplug the lightning cable the screen instantaneously unfreezes. Defective batteries? charging hardware? It's not up to the consumer to troubleshoot. This has been going on for several years now and it's ridiculous that one of the supposedly premiere hardware/software manufacturers has not provided a remedy. Whatever their diagnostics system does at the Apple Store is insufficient to detect this common flaw.

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

i know you want to help, but posts like this waste people’s time, and has them taking unnecessary steps they may not understand. We’ve had years of “try this”, “try that” and none of it is a solution because the issue is not addressable through changes in settings, deleting apps, or any or this other “stuff”. It is absolutely NOT a WiFi issue and your comments about changing DNS settings will contribute nothing towards fixing this issue. Suggesting that people to go through steps that are nothing but guesses, time wasters, and potentially impact the functioning of their device is not helpful.

How many people have this problem? It is years now and no fix or acknowledgment from Apple that there is even a problem. I now have a brick that cost over $1000. Will not be buying from Apple again. My original iPad Pro and the problem and I took it in in the only reason I got a new one make that a remanufactured one was the guy at the Genius Bar was a friend of mine. Took in the remanufactured one and was told there was nothing wrong with it even though It’s still had the same issues. Now my AppleCare has expired and there’s nothing I can do about this iPad that does not work. People need to know that Apple does not support its products or its customers they just want your initial money and then send you on your way and lied to you about issues with their products.

I was told by Apple that they were sorry, but every 10.5 Pro will do this at around 7 months. If you don’t have Apple care there is nothing they can do for you. It’s just a problem with that particular product that they can’t do anything about. We were just unlucky to get that iPad. If you have Apple care they will replace it twice.

I posted a while back that after I reset my settings and removed the case, the problem improved. None of the other posted solutions, and I e tried them all, worked.

the unreponsiveness has not come back. I’m 100% certain that this is.a heat related issue and when running processor intensive tasks with the case etc on, I think the unresponsiveness was due to throttling of the processor (which we know apple does with their software for their computers and phones.

I had the problem for over a year after my original 12.9” iPad Pro was replaced because of light leakage under the screen. Try this- take the case off and feel if the iPad feels warm when you start having the problem. Some apps are not as well engineered as others and will cause more processor use. If the back of the ipad feels warm stop what you are doing and close all of your open apps using the swipe up trick. See if the problem stops.

I recently put the screen protector back on my iPad because I didn’t like how it felt using the Apple Pencil and Scribble on ios14. Everything is still working fine.