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iPadified

macrumors 68020
Apr 25, 2017
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Happens to me as well. I believe you sometime "shortcut" the screen but holding it on the edges. Should not happen I know as it is outside the touch sensitive area, but it does. Even cloth are sufficient sometimes to interfere - not always but some times. The fix I use is to make absolutely sure the screen is not in contact with anything for a few seconds and then press
Like many others I've read about here and elsewhere I have a randomly unresponsive screen on my iPad Pro (12 9") (2nd Generation). Other symptoms are freezing display and poor battery life. The unresponsiveness happens in every app and even using the app switcher.

I've been to the Genius bar twice under Applecare so far and they have reset, reloaded, restored, etc several times. They are convinced that it is software since nothing bad ever shows up in their diagnostic tests.

I just got back after they restored to it factory settings using their computer and it's even worse than before. I have no apps except Chrome, OnePassword, Gmail, and Pubg Mobile installed and it's still really bad.

Here's a video showing the intermittent nature of the issue. Works, then doesn't work, then works, then doesn't, etc. You certainly can't play a game with this tablet, and it's quite frustrating doing anything on it.


Has anyone ever actually fixed this issue? I've heard that it happens in the newer Pros too, and that a hardware replacement might not be much better. It was truly amazing before this issue started, and I can't seem to get Apple to take it seriously.

Note: Apple support is supposed to call me Sunday, so maybe I can get them to watch the video and see it for themselves?
Happens to me as well. I believe the screen "shortcut" by holding it on the edges. Should not happen I know as it is outside the touch sensitive area. Even cloth are sufficient sometimes to interfere. I wonder if it is static electricity.

The fix I use is to make absolutely sure the screen is not in contact with anything (even cloth) for a few seconds and then press on it. Usually works and the iPad behaves nicely after that. Need to do this one or twice per evening. No big deal. My old car also has some peculiarities that I have learnt to live with.

It is likely something to do with weird electrical signals - I sometime cook food that takes 45 minutes or stirring. I use an induction plate to heat the food. If I touch the metal cooking utensil with one hand, the iPad touch input by the other hand behaves very strange. Lose the contact from the cooking utensil and the iPad response normally again. Hence there is some electrical, or via magnetic induction, interference. If so they need to isolate the touch sensitive area for the rest of the iPad. Not easy with one big sheet of glass. Remember your school experiments about static electricity.

"You are holding it wrong" :)
 
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DragonX

macrumors 6502
Mar 23, 2013
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I'm trying to look out for other people.

How do you look out for them? What are you doing here in the thread where people have problems that you don't have and know little about?
[automerge]1575587414[/automerge]
Happens to me as well. I believe you sometime "shortcut" the screen but holding it on the edges. Should not happen I know as it is outside the touch sensitive area, but it does. Even cloth are sufficient sometimes to interfere - not always but some times. The fix I use is to make absolutely sure the screen is not in contact with anything for a few seconds and then press

Happens to me as well. I believe the screen "shortcut" by holding it on the edges. Should not happen I know as it is outside the touch sensitive area. Even cloth are sufficient sometimes to interfere. I wonder if it is static electricity.

The fix I use is to make absolutely sure the screen is not in contact with anything (even cloth) for a few seconds and then press on it. Usually works and the iPad behaves nicely after that. Need to do this one or twice per evening. No big deal. My old car also has some peculiarities that I have learnt to live with.

It is likely something to do with weird electrical signals - I sometime cook food that takes 45 minutes or stirring. I use an induction plate to heat the food. If I touch the metal cooking utensil with one hand, the iPad touch input by the other hand behaves very strange. Lose the contact from the cooking utensil and the iPad response normally again. Hence there is some electrical, or via magnetic induction, interference. If so they need to isolate the touch sensitive area for the rest of the iPad. Not easy with one big sheet of glass. Remember your school experiments about static electricity.

"You are holding it working" :)

Yeah it looks like this problem has something to do with static electricity. We tried many things like trying to remove it by conducting metal surfaces, trying to isolate the screen - nothing helped. If you have anything in mind please share! Because Apple doesn't care. Somebody has to fix it haha
 

AutomaticApple

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Nov 28, 2018
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How do you look out for them? What are you doing here in the thread where people have problems that you don't have and know little about?
I know a guy in real life (they live far away from me) who had a 2nd generation iPad Pro. It had the white spot issue and touch disease. A while later, Apple replaced it for free (gave him the same model) and he was satisfied. Neither the white spot issue or touch disease issue reappeared. It works just fine to this day.

This argument isn't going anywhere. Let's just settle it here, but I seriously hope nobody resists buying an iPad because the internet simply told them not to. Ask people in real life about their experience with the iPad you plan on buying.

Thank you for your time.
 

seadragon

macrumors 68000
Mar 10, 2009
1,872
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I know a guy in real life (they live far away from me) who had a 2nd generation iPad Pro. It had the white spot issue and touch disease. A while later, Apple replaced it for free (gave him the same model) and he was satisfied. Neither the white spot issue or touch disease issue reappeared. It works just fine to this day.

This argument isn't going anywhere. Let's just settle it here, but I seriously hope nobody resists buying an iPad because the internet simply told them not to. Ask people in real life about their experience with the iPad you plan on buying.

Thank you for your time.

I also know a guy in real life (me) who has had 3 2nd gen iPad Pros (original replaced twice under AppleCare) and they all had/have touch disease. The 3rd one (this one) now has bright spots starting to appear along the long edge on the smart connector side. I’m also now out of AppleCare.

I won’t tell anyone not to buy one, but I definitely will inform people of my experience here or if asked in person. Just the way people should be aware of the potential issues with the butterfly keyboards on the laptops (16” excluded).

To me, there’s nothing wrong with people posting up their experiences, both good and bad, for those researching a purchase. It’s up to the reader to make up their own minds in the end.

As always, it’s buyer beware.
 
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AutomaticApple

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I also know a guy in real life (me) who has had 3 2nd gen iPad Pros (original replaced twice under AppleCare) and they all had/have touch disease. The 3rd one (this one) now has bright spots starting to appear along the long edge on the smart connector side. I’m also now out of AppleCare.

I won’t tell anyone not to buy one, but I definitely will inform people of my experience here or if asked in person. Just the way people should be aware of the potential issues with the butterfly keyboards on the laptops (16” excluded).

To me, there’s nothing wrong with people posting up their experiences, both good and bad, for those researching a purchase. It’s up to the reader to make up their own minds in the end.

As always, it’s buyer beware.
Well said!
 

dmaxdmax

macrumors 6502a
Oct 26, 2006
771
174
If this is a hardware issue is it safe to assume that an external keyboard would work?
 

rui no onna

Contributor
Oct 25, 2013
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Funnily enough, I got the unresponsive “screen” thing while using a mouse. I can see the cursor being clicked/tapped but the device wasn’t responding to the action. Didn’t respond to actual fingers/touch, either. :p

Reminded me of running low on RAM on a PC with HDD and having it just stall while it finishes swapping from the page file.
 

rui no onna

Contributor
Oct 25, 2013
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Strangely, I can’t remember the last time I had the non-responsive screen issue.
Just happened again to me (2017 Pro 12.9 A10X/4 GB RAM and 2019 Air 3 A12/3GB).

Ordered my first Pi (RPi 4, 4GB) on Pi Day. Spent yesterday just reading and watching various tutorials for the Raspberry Pi. Also copied all the MagPi issues (~2-3GB?) from Windows/Samba share to the GoodReader folder on iCloud on the 12.9 and downloaded an offline copy of the entire MagPi folder on GoodReader on the 10.5 iPads.

The media heavy content has made for both very frequent refreshes (every single tab refreshed) and general unresponsiveness (particularly in Safari). Even the GUI was glitchy. Experienced similar slowness on the Air 3 with similar workload (for side by side reference). Force close wasn't cutting it. Had to reboot to get the iPads working smoothly again.

When Apple does upgrade the iPad Pros, I hope they have an option for 8GB RAM (8GB/1TB 11" $1499 and 12.9" $1699 are acceptable enough price points).

16463065-87AD-4F8E-802D-18F83812E00B.png
 

DragonX

macrumors 6502
Mar 23, 2013
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Just happened again to me (2017 Pro 12.9 A10X/4 GB RAM and 2019 Air 3 A12/3GB).

Ordered my first Pi (RPi 4, 4GB) on Pi Day. Spent yesterday just reading and watching various tutorials for the Raspberry Pi. Also copied all the MagPi issues (~2-3GB?) from Windows/Samba share to the GoodReader folder on iCloud on the 12.9 and downloaded an offline copy of the entire MagPi folder on GoodReader on the 10.5 iPads.

The media heavy content has made for both very frequent refreshes (every single tab refreshed) and general unresponsiveness (particularly in Safari). Even the GUI was glitchy. Experienced similar slowness on the Air 3 with similar workload (for side by side reference). Force close wasn't cutting it. Had to reboot to get the iPads working smoothly again.

When Apple does upgrade the iPad Pros, I hope they have an option for 8GB RAM (8GB/1TB 11" $1499 and 12.9" $1699 are acceptable enough price points).

View attachment 899422

Wow! You really pushed it to the limits. But I don't think your issue is connected to the hardware touchscreen failure people are experiencing here. I think yours is more software related.

The general problem with the touch screen of modern iPads is not connected to particular software. Touchscreen just stops working randomly everywhere, even on the home screen. No matter the load.
 

rui no onna

Contributor
Oct 25, 2013
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Wow! You really pushed it to the limits. But I don't think your issue is connected to the hardware touchscreen failure people are experiencing here. I think yours is more software related.

The general problem with the touch screen of modern iPads is not connected to particular software. Touchscreen just stops working randomly everywhere, even on the home screen. No matter the load.
It was unresponsive in home screen, too. Really just about everywhere including settings. What I'm doing should not be all that taxing on the CPU. It's mostly just RAM and SSD that's hit. Besides, it was already the day after the heavy use when it was still being unresponsive that I had to restart (basically restart, closed apps and tabs, restart for good measure).

To be honest, some of the YouTube videos I've seen, it could either be hardware or software. It just seems common that whenever someone gets an unresponsive screen, blame automatically goes to touchscreen hardware but I reckon for a lot of cases, it isn't always the culprit. As mentioned, I've seen unresponsive touchscreen symptoms while using a mouse. Obviously, hardware wasn't at fault there. ?

Funnily enough, this (Pro 10.5) just went unresponsive on me and then crashed while previewing this post. Oh well, at least I didn't lose the post. :rolleyes:

I'm sure there are those with genuine hardware issues. We don't really know how prevalent that is versus how many are software-based because Apple likes to put as little RAM in their devices as possible.
 

DragonX

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Mar 23, 2013
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It was unresponsive in home screen, too. Really just about everywhere including settings. What I'm doing should not be all that taxing on the CPU. It's mostly just RAM and SSD that's hit. Besides, it was already the day after the heavy use when it was still being unresponsive that I had to restart (basically restart, closed apps and tabs, restart for good measure).

To be honest, some of the YouTube videos I've seen, it could either be hardware or software. It just seems common that whenever someone gets an unresponsive screen, blame automatically goes to touchscreen hardware but I reckon for a lot of cases, it isn't always the culprit. As mentioned, I've seen unresponsive touchscreen symptoms while using a mouse. Obviously, hardware wasn't at fault there. ?

Funnily enough, this (Pro 10.5) just went unresponsive on me and then crashed while previewing this post. Oh well, at least I didn't lose the post. :rolleyes:

I'm sure there are those with genuine hardware issues. We don't really know how prevalent that is versus how many are software-based because Apple likes to put as little RAM in their devices as possible.

There's definitely a software problem related to Safari/YouTube/not enough RAM when iPad slows down for a while. And there's another issue that is discussed here - when you tap on the screen with your finger and it doesn't respond to your touch (and sometimes Apple Pencil too). That's definitely hardware problem with most of the modern iPads, when touchscreen fails after 3-24 months of usage. There are numerous threads (including this one) on MacRumors about this issue.
 
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SpacePipe

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Games like pubg that heat up the ipad cause a breakdown in the glue that holds the touchscreen together. Apple cannot detect the touchscreen glitch with their hardware test. If you wait until the glue breaks down so much you can see light bleed, apple will then replace the ipad. Don’t run anything that heats up the ipad and it will never develop the problem.
 

rui no onna

Contributor
Oct 25, 2013
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Games like pubg that heat up the ipad cause a breakdown in the glue that holds the touchscreen together. Apple cannot detect the touchscreen glitch with their hardware test. If you wait until the glue breaks down so much you can see light bleed, apple will then replace the ipad. Don’t run anything that heats up the ipad and it will never develop the problem.
Thanks for the explanation.

I don't do anything CPU taxing and I'm always on 0-20% brightness (sometimes lower) on the iPad which explains why I never (or maybe rarely) encountered the hardware-related issues. Only reason I have the Pro is for top storage capacities.
 

DragonX

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Mar 23, 2013
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Thanks for the explanation.

I don't do anything CPU taxing and I'm always on 0-20% brightness (sometimes lower) on the iPad which explains why I never (or maybe rarely) encountered the hardware-related issues. Only reason I have the Pro is for top storage capacities.

As from my experience - I never kept iPad on the full brightness either, also I was always using Apple genuine charger and never any film screes. Nevertheless both of my iPad Pros 12" Cellular had failed touchscreen, I experienced a lot of freezing all the time. And now I have light bleeding on the bottom of the screen. It all started happening after 2 years on a new iPad Pro and after 3 months on the refurb - right after the warranty ended up.
 

Neodym

macrumors 68020
Jul 5, 2002
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Want to contribute another data point:

For me, the unresponsive touchscreen has shown more often in recent times (iPad Pro 12.9 2nd gen). I noticed that it often helps to use another finger or a finger of the other hand, when the touch screen is unresponsive. In ~80% of all cases that would immediately make the screen register touches again. Another 15% require to touch the screen in a different spot.

For the remainder of cases, it usually helps to let it sit for a few seconds without doing anything. I never had to restart the device.

After reading this thread, I also realized that the light bleed at the top of the screen wasn’t present when I purchased the device. So it seems that indeed there is some degeneration going on and it might also be connected to static electricity (switching touching finger helps more often than not). And it might as well be heat-related, as I’m using a full case instead of only the Smart Cover that Apple offered and tend to load that thing occasionally.

Oh - one more thing: Out of curiosity I switched keyclicks on. You can hear single touches registering multiple times. So maybe the keyboard buffer gets overloaded on prolonged typing (occasional taps usually don’t show problems, which seems to support that theory a bit).
 
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dannydav709

macrumors newbie
Jun 13, 2019
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have any of you experienced if iOS 14 fixed this issue? I have begun to experience the problem you guys are describing and Im wondering if iOS 14 fixed the issue, but I don’t want To update for no reason since I am jail broken and would like to keep my jailbreak for now. Thanks
 

seadragon

macrumors 68000
Mar 10, 2009
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I doubt it’s fixed. Every single OS update has failed to fix the issue. I got fed up after 3 years with this ridiculous problem. After 2 warranty exchanges and being left with what was now a worthless device that was practically unusable, I ended it. Now I’m back to using my 9.7 Pro that still works perfectly all these years later.

Bye-bye POS 12.9!

i-mSSJSR4-L.jpg
 

muzzy996

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Feb 16, 2018
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Nice. I have to admit there are occasional brief moments where i'd like to beat the crap out of my 12.9 when it exhibits the issue.
 

seadragon

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Mar 10, 2009
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Nice. I have to admit there are occasional brief moments where i'd like to beat the crap out of my 12.9 when it exhibits the issue.

Yeah, I don’t normally do stuff like that to my devices. But, my 12.9 was to the point where it was basically a brick. In hindsight, I guess I could have kept it as a serving tray or something. Oh well.
 
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pdoherty

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Dec 30, 2014
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You are thinking about this way too broadly. There are more than likely millions of unaffected 2nd generation iPad Pros out in the wild. There are people who aren't experiencing any issues with their 2nd generation iPad Pro.

Again, not all iPads have major issues. I feel bad for those who are afraid to buy an iPad because of all this crappy fear mongering. There is no doubt that the issue exists, that's for sure, but it isn't big enough to justify scaring people from buying an iPad.

TL;DR: If it seems like the internet is trying to scare you in some way from buying a product, do some more research elsewhere or in real life.

What better place to do research than here?

And what do you think would motivate people who are obviously Apple and iPad users to lie about their experiences with unresponsive screens and replacements?
 

pdoherty

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Dec 30, 2014
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Yeah, I don’t normally do stuff like that to my devices. But, my 12.9 was to the point where it was basically a brick. In hindsight, I guess I could have kept it as a serving tray or something. Oh well.
I killed my second 12.9 that failed with the unresponsive screen issue by bending it over my head. Which was after I heated the screen with a heat gun in an attempt to relaminat/reglue the screen.
 
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