Growing Number of iPad Pro Owners Complain of Screen Stuttering Issues

[cmaier]

Just for a test, I noticed the touch screen issue does not occur when I use the Apple Pencil (Gen 2). When I have problem tapping certain location (regardless of the app), I used the Apple Pencil and the tap work.

I am now 90% sure that this issue have to do with how the screen react to fingerprint as opposed to Apple Pencil AND iOS 12.3.

PS: I posted in Reddit (/r/ipad) to ask if anyone experiences this and got downvoted to oblivion.

Agreed. I think it actually has to do with charging the Apple Pencil. I find the issue only occurs when:

1) the device is plugged in and
2) the Apple Pencil is stuck to the side to charge

When I remove the Apple Pencil the problem goes away. When I re-attach it, i find that the Apple Pencil battery percentage is not at 100% - it’s in the low 90’s. It seems like the pencil is attached, but not charging for some reason, and whatever that reason is, it also affects the screen responsiveness. It’s like the “is the pencil attached and charging” process thread runs at the highest priority and is stuck in a loop, preventing the touch screen from responding.

 

[LizKat]

Still no such issues on my end. iOS 12.3.1 / 2018 12.9” and 2018 11”. I do think the 2017 models and before have issues though.

I'm going to put 12.3.1 on the SE and see what happens, leaving another SE on 12.2 for now.

 

[misplaced-thesaurus]

I'm going to put 12.3.1 on the SE and see what happens, leaving another SE on 12.2 for now.

I’ve been experiencing touch registration issues with my iPad for the past month or so. Hard resets & clean installs provided temporary relief, but neither fix provided a permanent solution.

That said, I updated to 12.3.1 last night and haven’t seen the issue again. I’m not counting my chickens yet, as I did see temporary improvements in the past, but I’d be curious to know if anyone else is seeing improvements after updating to 12.3.1.

PS - I don’t know if this is related, but I’m also experiencing occasional “stuck” keys on the iPad keyboard, particularly keyboard shortcuts (e.g. I’ll use CMD+W to close one tab in Safari and it will end up closing all of them). I am sometimes able to interrupt it by hitting other keys, but it’s definitely frustrating. Is anyone else experiencing this issue?

 

[Raqee]

Some iPad Pro owners who have 2017 and 2018 models have increasingly been running into issues with screen stuttering, based on a slew of threads on the Apple Support communities and the MacRumors forums.

Affected users have iPad Pro models that sometimes refuse to register touch gestures, stutter when scrolling, miss keystrokes, and have other similar issues. We here at MacRumors have not been able to replicate this issue, but the sheer number of complaints suggests something may be going on with the iPad Pro's display.

MacRumors reader Flasch describes the issue he had with his iPad Pro right out of the box:
Other iPad Pro users are having the same issue with touchscreen unresponsiveness, which can also impact scrolling and general usage. From MacRumors reader Codeseven:The problem appears to be primarily impacting new 2018 iPad Pro models, though there have also been complaints from some 2016 and 2017 iPad Pro owners.

A video demonstrating the stuttering issue​

MacRumors reader Roger, who let us know about the issue, says that after approximately a month, his 2018 iPad Pro had issues with scrolling and wouldn't register input. He was able to get a replacement, as were many other customers who have experienced this issue, but he said that the replacement model has also been exhibiting the same issues.

It's not clear if this is a software or a hardware issue, and there are certainly many 2017 and 2018 iPad Pro models out there that have no problems like this at all, which makes it difficult to determine what's going on. Some of the issues with the 2017 model appear to have started with the release of iOS 11.3, but have persisted through software updates. Many users who are running iOS 12.2 are still reporting problems.

Some users have noticed that the stuttering problem goes away on the 2018 models when the Apple Pencil 2 is attached to the iPad, perhaps suggestive of an Apple Pencil-related connectivity issue.

On the whole, though, it's not clear what's causing issues for iPad Pro owners who are having touchscreen responsiveness problems. Anyone with an unresponsive touchscreen should bring it into an Apple Store or an Apple Authorized Repair Shop for service as some users have been able to get replacement units.

Article Link: Growing Number of iPad Pro Owners Complain of Screen Stuttering Issues

Unfortuntly, I have same issue but only when I use Apple Pencil the screen works well. Maybe I got this issue from last 2 updates!

 

[haniobaid]

below is the reply i posted to the main thread in the apple support forums. it took them all of 30 seconds to delete my reply. God forbid an angry customer who got ripped off should vent a little.


I have ipad pro 2018 1TB. I bought it in Jan-2019. It was initially awesome. i ran over 800 apps on it. cpu usage was always low, ram was about 50% with no apps running eventhough ipad pro 2018 1tb has more ram than other models. still all was well. I can't remember which ios 12 upgrade caused the issue but i know it did, because after one of them, it became unusable. a restart would offer a few minutes of relief. i kept uninstalling apps, went from 800 to 200 to 100 to 50 then to 30 (including the forced stock apps. i turned off everything. no notifications, no background tasks, no search, no siri, no widgets, i did soft reset, hard reset, erasing data and settings and setting up as new ipad pro. at present i have 23 apps total, 1.02 TB available disk space out of 1.03tb total. nearly every single feature is turned off, and yet the issue is happening. this is the worst user experience with any device i have ever had. It wasn't cheap either. i am a very technical person with a comp sci education and have been using every single ipad device as soon as the newest came out. i was at the point where ipad had replaced my desktop and laptop, until my 2017 pro model became too slow. i heard of planned obsolesence but having ipad pro 2018 act this way only a few weeks after it was manufactured when it is supposedly the most powerful tablet device apple has is unacceptable. I am considering abandoning the whole platform for the first time since the ipad 1 made me smile. I consider this Apple's biggest failure yet especially since they failed to acknowledge and correct the issue. I have been in the IT business all my life. This type of intermittent issue is very easy to dodge when the manufacturer decides to act dodgy!

 

[leebroath]

I am finding the touch response and absolute joke, I never had this issue with any other iPad, regardless if it had a screen protector on or not.

I have booked an Apple Appointment for when I get back home with my 11" 1TB. I am not putting up with this at the cost I paid. I would rather hand it back and wait for the next gen at this rate. Sometimes it can be really bad and I'm practically punching the screen to get a touch reaction.

Can't believe Apple haven't decided to at least acknowledge the touch issues, I am on the last firmware also

 

[haniobaid]

Can't believe Apple haven't decided to at least acknowledge the touch issues, I am on the last firmware also

I found out this isn't the first time apple did this. they had the same design flaw in several models of iphone 6. Google touch disease to find it. In the same manner they kept lying and insisting there is no issue until they couldn't do it anymore.

Well i might be happy with apple watch and iphone but for ipad this is only the last straw in a series of serious blunders:
- removing speaker port to force people to buy crappy airpods (use Schure bt-5 instead for better design and 10 hours of use)
- replacing touch id with ultra crappy face id which is unreliable and real annoying to have to adjust light and distance
-arbitrarily removing backend support for 32 bit apps that were perfectly working and had no 64 bit alternative shamelessly forcing users to rebuy hundreds of apps
-Deliberately being extremely stingy with amount of RAM on ipad pro to make it easy to obsolete it just by having ios require that amount for minimal functionality and we all know they were caught red handed sabotaging batteries to force quick obsolescence again not acknowledging it until they were caught

with these factors and the fact this new ipad touch issue in 2019 precipitated by an ios12 update forced me to uninstall 800 something apps leaving only 20 functional on the supposed ipad pro 2018 1TB supercomputer, apple basically took the decision for me. My next tablet will be one that works well, certainly not an ipad...

 

[LovedMacFirst]

Has anyone tried on iOS 13 yet? Does the issue continue there?

 

[leebroath]

Has anyone tried on iOS 13 yet? Does the issue continue there?

Good question actually, I would love to know also

 

[leebroath]

Took the iPad in tonight and they mentioned about a fresh software update which I had already completed a few months ago, so they are going to replace the iPad Pro

Have to wait for a few days as they didn’t have any in the store

 

[kazmac]

Took the iPad in tonight and they mentioned about a fresh software update which I had already completed a few months ago, so they are going to replace the iPad Pro

Have to wait for a few days as they didn’t have any in the store

At least you got a replacement, I took a wash of $1k with the 2017 iPP.

Returned all the iPads I attempted to buy in the last year due to this issue, save for a 2018 which is starting to exhibit it (along with my 8+). Needless to say, I am working on moving on.

Good luck with your replacement.

 

[anonymous888]

My iPad 11 inch is 6 months old.

It started happening with me after I updated to iPadOS beta. Earlier I was jailbroken and on iOS 12.1.1. I do not remember having this issue then. Maybe it used to happen and was less prominent for me to notice.
But now it happens every few hour or so.

When I remove the charger the the affected area touch starts responding again. Usually happens when I am playing PUBG and I have to pick up some item. Tapping won’t work. As soon as I remove charger it works again.

Happens a lot when not charging too. Just to be clear.

Hope it is a software issue. Really getting frustrated.

 

[haniobaid]

My iPad 11 inch is 6 months old.
It started happening with me after I updated to iPadOS beta. .

ipados beta is IOS 13 new ipad specific branch. That answers the question on whether the issue is fixed in ios13. The public beta is in July and ios13 release expected in September with the new devices. So if apple actually acknowledge the issue now, they can fix it by then, but the way they're acting, that would be a miracle. If they don't fix it by september, surface pro 7 will be out at the same time. may not run my ios apps but right now, neither does ipad, so it makes no difference

 

[Danz91]

Took the iPad in tonight and they mentioned about a fresh software update which I had already completed a few months ago, so they are going to replace the iPad Pro

Have to wait for a few days as they didn’t have any in the store

I’ve experienced this issue since last year, I purchased the 2018 12.9 pro model and have since got it replaced 3 times, the issue still persists after doing everything from adjusting settings, deleting apps to setting up as a new iPad. My brother has also purchased the 11 inch pro model and is experiencing these same issues. I believe that this is affecting all 2018 iPad pros and that some people may just not notice it yet..it’s just too much of a coincidence that every single replacement I received had this same issue.
Btw I have never used an Apple Pencil so that’s ruled out.

I’ve also added a few YouTube videos and have had quite a bit of response from people experiencing these issues:

 

[haniobaid]

Danz, yep the struggle is real. You would think after the 3rd time they agreed to replace your ipad their quality process would kick in and someone would do a review and pass it to the developers, but no such luck.

Apple's quality department, we're looking at you!

 

[kazmac]

I’ve experienced this issue since last year, I purchased the 2018 12.9 pro model and have since got it replaced 3 times, the issue still persists after doing everything from adjusting settings, deleting apps to setting up as a new iPad. My brother has also purchased the 11 inch pro model and is experiencing these same issues. I believe that this is affecting all 2018 iPad pros and that some people may just not notice it yet..it’s just too much of a coincidence that every single replacement I received had this same issue.
Btw I have never used an Apple Pencil so that’s ruled out.

I’ve also added a few YouTube videos and have had quite a bit of response from people experiencing these issues:

Liked for your videos. Please send these to Apple’s feedback and/or Tim Cook.

Sorry you had to constantly deal with this.

 

[karataev]

I thought I was going crazy. My iPad pro experiences touch problems. Especially near the apple pencil port (don't think it's related but it's the simplest explanation of the affected area).

 

[LovedMacFirst]

I had a chat with an Apple Support specialist. They ran a remote diagnostic and everything came back normal as expected. I even shared the link to this forum. The only advice I got was to reinstall. Which I have already tried without any luck.

Does anyone have good ways to reproduce the steps needed to get the failing error? I haven't been able to predictability reproduce said errors. They just happen

One thing I have found is that if I lock the device and unlock it right away, the issue gets resolved. Not sure why.

 

[Danz91]

I had a chat with an Apple Support specialist. They ran a remote diagnostic and everything came back normal as expected. I even shared the link to this forum. The only advice I got was to reinstall. Which I have already tried without any luck.

Does anyone have good ways to reproduce the steps needed to get the failing error? I haven't been able to predictability reproduce said errors. They just happen

One thing I have found is that if I lock the device and unlock it right away, the issue gets resolved. Not sure why.

I can reproduce this issue on my ipad but not all the time, it has its moments. A lot of the time ive noticed that if the ipad is laying flat and I pick it up and tilt it towards me it fails to recognize touch input, the only way to fix it is to lay it back down. I only recently discovered this so not sure if my other ipad pros responded this way (this is my 3rd replacement if you havent read my previous post).

Also I think I may have found a potential fix but not 100% sure yet. What ive done is gone into Settings>General>Accessibility and disabled the Tap to Wake feature. I then restarted the iPad.
For the last 3 days I have not noticed any issues at all, im going to test it for a week and see how that goes.

If that doesnt fix it ive got to the stage where Im sick of returning these ipads so am just living with it for now hoping for some sort of fix. Perhaps if the issue is still occuring by the time the new ipad pro launches ill demand a refund and try for the next generation.
[doublepost=1561191360][/doublepost]

Liked for your videos. Please send these to Apple’s feedback and/or Tim Cook.

Sorry you had to constantly deal with this.

Have done this a few times actually and no response.

 

[kazmac]

I can reproduce this issue on my ipad but not all the time, it has its moments. A lot of the time ive noticed that if the ipad is laying flat and I pick it up and tilt it towards me it fails to recognize touch input, the only way to fix it is to lay it back down. I only recently discovered this so not sure if my other ipad pros responded this way (this is my 3rd replacement if you havent read my previous post).

Also I think I may have found a potential fix but not 100% sure yet. What ive done is gone into accessibility and switched off Tap to Wake then restarted the ipad leaving Tap to Wake switched off for good. For the last 3 days I have not noticed any issues at all, im going to test it for a week and see how that goes.

If that doesnt fix it ive got to the stage where Im sick of returning these ipads so am just living with it for now hoping for some sort of fix. Perhaps if the issue is still occuring by the time the new ipad pro launches ill demand a refund and try for the next generation.
[doublepost=1561191360][/doublepost]

Have done this a few times actually and no response.

I am glad you’re figuring out fixes.

I couldn’t get a replacement for my 2017 12.9 because I couldn’t replicate the issues so I took a wash, that was the first time that ever happened.

Prior to this, I have generally received responses when I write detailed emails with what happened and when. I say things firmly, but not nasty. I’d keep trying and mention that you’re on your third replacement. I politely push the guilt and that I’ve been an Apple user for close to 25 years which seems to garner responses 4/5s of the time.

My issues always start in Procreate and spread from there. I found a detailed thread at their support site yesterday about this, their developers cannot figure out why this is happening, which all points back to Apple. I stand behind the excessive heat being a trigger for the issue as that is what makes the irresponsiveness happen in almost any iPad I buy (including the 2019 Mini). If the 2018 iPad had more RAM, I’d call it a day.

At this point though, I am starting to think about Wacom tablets which annoys me and means something else to learn.

 

[macfacts]

Maybe if people start calling this lag, apple will fix it.

 

[Khedron]

Maybe if people start calling this lag, apple will fix it.

The fastest mobile CPU ever and Apple still can't deliver a smooth UI...

Just how bad are Apple programmers? Or maybe there's a fatal hardware flaw they're covering up?

 

[mi7chy]

The fastest mobile CPU ever and Apple still can't deliver a smooth UI...

Just how bad are Apple programmers? Or maybe there's a fatal hardware flaw they're covering up?

Synthetic benchmarks have never been a reliable metric of real world performance and on top of that they usually don't test for thermal throttling. They're only for inexperienced fanboys to get excited about.

 

[Khedron]

Synthetic benchmarks have never been a reliable metric of real world performance and on top of that they usually don't test for thermal throttling. They're only for inexperienced fanboys to get excited about.

It's as if Apple looked at their abysmal laptop keyboards that drop keystrokes or get stuck and thought "how do we replicate this 'premium' experience with a software keyboard"

 

[LovedMacFirst]

I can reproduce this issue on my ipad but not all the time, it has its moments. A lot of the time ive noticed that if the ipad is laying flat and I pick it up and tilt it towards me it fails to recognize touch input, the only way to fix it is to lay it back down. I only recently discovered this so not sure if my other ipad pros responded this way (this is my 3rd replacement if you havent read my previous post).

Also I think I may have found a potential fix but not 100% sure yet. What ive done is gone into Settings>General>Accessibility and disabled the Tap to Wake feature. I then restarted the iPad.
For the last 3 days I have not noticed any issues at all, im going to test it for a week and see how that goes.

If that doesnt fix it ive got to the stage where Im sick of returning these ipads so am just living with it for now hoping for some sort of fix. Perhaps if the issue is still occuring by the time the new ipad pro launches ill demand a refund and try for the next generation.
[doublepost=1561191360][/doublepost]

Have done this a few times actually and no response.

You are on to something with this. I've noticed this after I disconnect my iPad from charging and try to start using it. It will stop responding. It's the closest I've come to replicating it.

As a separate issue, I've had a few times where it just won't charge at all. Then i restart it and it goes back to charging. There's something weird going on.