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Black arrow appeared on my iPad Pro homepage

This is the 2nd time it's happened. Out of the blue, an arrow appeared on my iPad Pro. It's not the location status and I'm not multitasking. The last time it happened, I had to restart the iPad to remove it.


What is it and why did it appear?


iPad Pro 12.9” 5th Gen 2021, iPadOS 16.2

iPad Pro, iPadOS 16

Posted on Jan 6, 2023 8:51 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jan 28, 2023 10:28 AM

It’s very simple! (At least for my situation).

I have a ‘Apple magic keyboard’, and I (accidentally) discovered that when I press the control key with the keyboard attached, that pesky arrow appears. Just tap it again and it goes away! (might have to do so 2x).


Incidentally, it is similar with the shift key, option key and cmd key.


I went all over the board with this question, restarting the iPad and other stuff… I’m really surprised that the experts never picked up on this.

2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jan 28, 2023 10:28 AM in response to CXI

It’s very simple! (At least for my situation).

I have a ‘Apple magic keyboard’, and I (accidentally) discovered that when I press the control key with the keyboard attached, that pesky arrow appears. Just tap it again and it goes away! (might have to do so 2x).


Incidentally, it is similar with the shift key, option key and cmd key.


I went all over the board with this question, restarting the iPad and other stuff… I’m really surprised that the experts never picked up on this.

Jan 9, 2023 12:15 PM in response to CXI

Hello CXI,


It appears to be an Accessibility feature that is enabled on your iPad Pro. We'd check in the following location to see if Speak Screen is enabled: Hear iPad speak the screen, selected text, and typing feedback


  1. Go to the Settings app
  2. Tap on Accessibility
  3. Tap on Spoken Content


Is anything enabled here? If so, try disabling the features one at a time, to see if this arrow option disappears or not. In case it doesn't, do you use other Accessibility features on the iPad Pro? Do you use an external keyboard with the iPad Pro? The more we can understand about what's going on, the better we can assist.


Hoping to hear how it goes, take care.

Black arrow appeared on my iPad Pro homepage

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