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iPad Pro occasionally won't type lowercase letters (the "character space" stays stuck as uppercase)

What happens is I will type something, generally I accidentally hit the "Shift" or something happens that otherwise makes me decide to go back and change a capitalized letter to a lowercase letter, but after backspacing over the uppercase letter, I type a new letter, only that the new letter is now uppercase. So I backspace that letter thinking I must have accidentally hit the "Shift" button while typing again... I'm not. So I toggle through the caps lock... no luck. It takes backspacing one character space behind the letter I'm trying to change before that character space will allow a lowercase letter to appear.


This behavior started after upgrading to iOS 9.2 (and I'm using a Smart Keyboard). I've already checked and turned off "Auto-Capitalization" and "Auto-Correct." At this point, I can't think of some other setting that would be producing this behavior consistently. Has anyone else experienced this and/or does this sound like a bug?

iPad Pro Wi-Fi, iOS 9.2

Posted on Dec 15, 2015 4:53 PM

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13 replies

Dec 18, 2015 3:31 PM in response to JusBer

I write frequently on my iPad and this problem is driving me nuts. I hope it is fixed with a subequent iOS update.


I write on an iPad, not an iPad Pro. I use an external bluetooth keyboard. Up until 9.2 I never experienced this issue, but with 9.2 I experience it frequently when typing in Ulysses.


For example, I might type a word and hold down shift for slightly too long, resulting in "THree" for example, and when I backspace and re-type the "H," it stubbornly remains an uppercase letter until I backspace past that character location by one additional character (back far enough to delete the "T" in this example) and then I may type a lowercase character in that location.


As you mentioned, it does not happen when I type in a text field such as this one. But in apps like Ulysses or Messages I experience the issue consistently.


Have you learned whether Apple plans to address this issue?

Apr 24, 2016 11:37 AM in response to Judlh

To replace a capitalized letter do this:


Backspace over it

Hit shift again

Type the lower case letter


The shift is actually locked in the capitalize position and you need to hit it again to unlock it. Backspacing twice will do the same thing and erase whatever was before the capital letter, but you obviously can't do this for the first letter in a box.

May 18, 2016 7:52 AM in response to sallenmd

I have used the technique you describe to work around the issue in the meantime, sallenmd, but it is not a solution. For those of us who write for a living, typing rapidly and using muscle memory to correct small errors is critical. This is a bug and I sincerely hope Apple corrects it if they want people to use iOS as a viable writing platform.

May 18, 2016 2:49 PM in response to sallenmd

This feature has long been present in the soft keyboard. When they introduced the iPad Pro, they enhanced the functionality of external keyboards to some extent. I am hopeful this particular behavior was incorrectly inherited from the soft keyboard code and, once someone in development becomes aware of the issue, they will eventually correct it.


This feature makes sense with the soft keyboard, where it is more difficult to correct a capitalization mistake. With an external keyboard, it is far easier to re-capitalize a word if the word calls for it.

iPad Pro occasionally won't type lowercase letters (the "character space" stays stuck as uppercase)

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