iPad Pro 12.9” not responding to touch intermittently

I purchased an IPAD Pro 12.9 in December 2018. I started to notice that when typing I would miss characters and have to go back and correct. I thought it was my issue at first, but then started seeing some icons that would not always respond to my touch. I looked for something to adjust the touch sensitivity but could not find any. I finally called Apple today and reported the issue and told them that others were having similar issues. The support rep acted like they have never heard of this issue before. They had me power off and back on and to reset the settings to factory. I did both and will see if the reset of the settings helps, I had tried the power reset before and it did not help. Because the issue is intermittent it may take some use to see if the issue is still there. The IPAD Pro replaced a regular IPAD that never had this issue. Has anyone had success in getting this resolved without replacing the IPAD?

See my post reply for a possible solution 3 replies above yours.

Also,

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.

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.

I went thru the same diagnostics and remedy procedures, got a replacement unit and it’s back. It’s annoying that they pretend not to know of anything, unless they really don’t which I highly doubt.

It could be a hardware thing as i remember it getting triggered each time I would charge the ipad and use it at the same time. I would find the need to unplug it for it to work. Could be a static interference? However, now, plugged in or not, stupid touchscreen wouldn’t work.

That is WHOLE different issue than the one being discussed in this posting.

Your issue is completely off-topic post here.

If your Apple Pencil sat around unused and not kept charged up for more than a few weeks, or so, OR LONGER, then the battery in your Apple Pencil may have failed and is dead and you will have to purchase another brand new Apple Pencil.

Sorry.

FYI and something Apple never divulges to it potential iPad Pro/Apple Pencil customers/users unless the potential customer/user is smart enough to ask about AND, apparently, still an issue with the second generation Apple Pencil,

Due to the “always on and active/standby” nature of the Apple Pencil and, also, due to its very tiny rechargeable Li-ion battery (smaller than the eraser head on a REAL wooden pencil), the Apple Pencil needs to be constantly charged up to some significant charge level ALL THE TIME, even when not using the Pencil for prolonged periods of time.

The Apple Pencil needs to be kept charged to a minimum of 5-10% all the time.

If the Apple Pencil battery is allowed to drain down to 0% and allowed to stay in that flat, zero charge condition for more than a few weeks, or so, OR EVEN LONGER, that very tiny little Li-ion battery is too small to keep at a 0% state for a long period of time and it will fail and the Apple Pencil will be dead and you may have to “pop” for another $99 or $129 U.S.D. Apple Pencil, once again!

It may not matter if this is an iOS issue ( as I really suspect ) and not a hardware issue.

The unresponsive touch issue is happening across ALL iPad Pro year and models and is starting to appear with 5th and 6th generation, 9.7 inch screen iPad models, as well.

So, this leads me to believe that this unresponsive touch issues is a software one and NOT a hardware problem.

Lets us know in a few weeks whether the touch issues went away with another new 2018 iPad Pro.

Best of Luck with the new iPad Pro.

I Purchase my 12.9 iPad Pro in Dec. 2018 and had intermittent touchscreen response issues from day one. I did all the resets/reloads, removed the cover and it still had the issue. I sent it in for repair last week and got a note that Apple could not find any problems. I got it back yesterday and so far it is working, but they did not do anything to fix it. If it fails again I am sending it back in.

My question to you is: Were they able to duplicate the issue? If not how many times did it take to get a replacement?

(This is a reply that I posted on the current MacRumors thread about this)

I've had this "Screen Stuttering" problem infrequently on my 2017 2nd gen 12.9-inch iPad Pro, and the only times it has really bothered me was when I was playing a game called Wordscapes, in which you select letters by dragging your finger across a circle to spell a word. Sometimes it just stops linking the letters and only the last letter or two are selected. The problem might persist for a minute or more. In fact, Wordscapes, which otherwise is a fun and addictive game, may be the ONLY application I've used that is affected by this problem! (Well, perhaps the problem simply doesn't affect those other games as much due to differing gameplay.) Anyway, I haven't had this problem since the latest iOS 12.2 update. My iPad Pro is now working perfectly. I've never had a problem using the virtual keyboard, and I've been alternating between several different language keyboards on my iPad.

I may be wrong, but it seems to me that Wordscapes, like several other games that I play, was not written using Apple's Xcode or Swift IDEs and perhaps that may be the underlying cause of this problem. It may just be an artifact of being ported over from another platform.

I hope that this helps Apple identify the problem.

I have a 2017 iPad Pro 12.9, top spec. It did the touch screen malfunction. Same symptoms. Apple graciously replaced it after initially saying I would have to pay about half of retail to fix it. The replacement started doing it and later stopped recognizing my Verizon SIM card. I did all of Verizon’s suggestions and then they sent me a new card....which was unrecognized. The funny thing is that the SIM card is recognized at the very beginning of the hello/setup process after wiping and then stops recognizing the card. So it isn’t hardware.

i bought a 2018 iPad Pro. Top spec 12.9 cellular 1 TB. IT started with this touchscreen BS. A few days ago, I updated to 12.2. All the sudden......no problem. Cross my fingers, the screen has been great. Apple, if you actually fixed the error - thank you......truly thank you.

[Edited by Host]

I had the issue with both a 2017 and 2018 iPad Pro. Since iOS 12.2 came out the other week....no more issues. Since there was no official acknowledgement or announcement, I don’t know if it is truly fixed or is merely taking a break from aggravating me.

A system restore from iTunes can be from a backup to iTunes or can be setting up an iPad as new. The way I understand the process, yes it is the same thing. You really shouldn’t blame the reps as they have a certain checklist. When I did mine through them....the original 2017 unit.......if I had performed that step, I told them so. I politely informed them I was not going to go through the same steps over and over. The key is be polite, be kind. These are humans with feelings that want to be helpful. As long as you are nice, they will want to help you. If you need to step up a level, politely ask to escalate. They won’t take it poorly. They will be relieved.

I was very irate earlier in this thread and the moderator edited my post. He was correct in doing so.

Just in case, I would humor them one last time and do the reset the way they ask. My own issue is that I have over 200gb of content on the machine. So it takes forever to restore....even through iTunes.

So far, so good on mine now. Believe me, the smooth typing experience makes so much difference in the perception of the quality and appreciation of the device.

I definitely think there are more issues at play here. Mine seemed to be fixed with the latest update, which confirms that for a lot of people it’s a software issue. It happened to me mostly when I took the Pencil off the side of the 2018 iPad Pro. If it had been on for a while, I wouldn’t get the issue.

I had one iPad replaced already because of the issue, which now feels like a waste. From what other people are saying, there seem to be hardware issues with certain parts of the screen etc. For many of us, it didn’t matter where you swiped, it wouldn’t register and then stutter, irrespective of where you touched.

MacRumors wrote a piece, which I hope gets published.

I also have an iPad Pro 12.9” 2015 and I confirm that it does have the problem, as per my previous posts. And, as you write, I too only have it since either early iOS 12 or late iOS 11 - I can’t remember the exact moment it started -.

I just updated iOS to 12.2 (+ forced a hard reset, as suggested to me by MichelPM) and so far it’s fine, but since the problem always had an intermittent nature, I can’t yet say whether the non-responsiveness has finally gone or not.

I have an 11 and a 12.9 iPad Pro. I had absolutely no issues on either until I updated the 11 to iOS 12.2

Within minutes of trying the new update I knew there was a problem. It was ignoring touches randomly in certain areas of the screen, it would register a touch and then forget it a second later. If there was a visual design on some games that shows that you are touching the screen, it would sometimes flash the design to say it was registering and deregistering a touch very rapidly.

Sometimes the screen will be ok a split second later, sometimes it repeats over and over, sometimes it ignores touch in that area for 30 seconds. Then suddenly it'll be fine for minutes or hours before doing it again.

There is no way I'd be lucky enough to have it happen whilst at an Apple store. I might have to record myself using the 11 with the 12.9 as proof. The 12.9 is still on iOS 12.1.4 and is having no problem apart from the ignored touches you get from some screen protectors.

I was hoping that Apple would have released a patch by now.

As an aside, I have also noticed that with iOS 12.2 it takes about 5 seconds to register and start charging when I plug it in.

This IS definitely a software/iOS 12 issue.

The current affected user count is well over 800 users of various iPad Pro years and models running iOS 12 and it would seem Apple, in its usual modus operandi, is choosing to ignore and/or not acknowledge this unresponsive touch screen issue until enough users complain and it makes tech news headlines like the iPhone 6 battery/CPU throttling issues did.

Equa,

Here is the link to the PCmag article

https://au.pcmag.com/apple-ipad-pro-129-inch-2018/61371/report-ipad-pros-have-a-touch-screen-problem

I too was belittled and spoken to in a very condescending way even though the problem happened right in front of their eyes. Wasn’t impressed considering I paid so much for my iPad. Apple already make so much money so was very disappointed and frustrated when they inconvenienced me so much instead of just replacing my IPad immediately. The manager who dealt with my problem said to me, “surely you can survive without playing games for a week...”, talking to me as though I was a child! when I’m actually in my mid 40s!

She told me that it was most likely a software issue and the apps I downloaded were possibly conflicting with the operating system. After recalling what she said, I’m thinking, that isn’t my problem and not my responsibility to test out for Apple. They should have just given me a new IPad and taken my faulty one to work out themselves on THEIR time why the problem was occurring rather than getting me to troubleshoot the problem, record video evidence of it and report back to them!! Absolutely ridiculous if you think about it as I’m not working for Apple or getting paid by them to fix their issues.

Customer service and after sales service is part of the overall experience when you buy any product and with the premium that Apple charges for their products, the terrible service that some of us received is inexcusable.