Motorola CS3070 Barcode Scanner

My company is developing a warehouse management software package for the iOS platform.

The application must be able to scan barcodes efficiently, and while we do have support for the camera, it's much more efficient to scan using a device such as the Motorola CS3070 Barcode Scanner.

The problem is that the scanner connects as a BlueTooth keyboard, and iOS makes a horrible assumption that the keyboard is a real physical keyboard and therefore it hides the on screen keyboard.

The problem is this is NOT a keyboard. It is a scanner.

The lack of onscreen keyboard is a MAJOR problem because users must OFTEN (like on every order) key information such as lot numbers or serial numbers when those numbers are not in barcode form.

The work arounds are to purchase a second BlueTooth keyboard (which defeats the whole purpose of having a MOBILE solution), or to disconnect the scanner to regain the on-screen keyboard, but that's also not practical. If you have a 100 line order to pick, you cannot connect / disconnect the keyboard 100 times!

I'm hoping there's a work around for this, but if not, then this is an appeal to Apple: PLEASE add a new option to iOS on pairing a particular keyboard to ASK THE USER if the onscreen keyboard should be disabled or not.