Task Switcher (Cmd-Tab) doesn’t work reliably on external monitor

[citivolus]

I recently upgraded to iPadOS 18.0.1 on my iPad Pro M2 11”. When connected to an external monitor and a Full Screen app is displayed on the iPad screen, the Command-Tab key combination does not bring up the Task Switcher dialog reliably on the external monitor when the mouse focus is on the external monitor. If I hide the app on the iPad screen, this works as expected.

I tried a blank install of iPadOS 18.0.1 and also tried the latest 18.1 beta but the bug remains. Anyone else notice this? I reported the bug to Apple.

 

[DarkHorseDynamo]

Yes, I have just set up an external monitor to use with my iPad and just noticed the very same thing. In my case I was using Davinci Resolve on the external monitor and when trying to use the task switcher, instead it brought up the keyboard shortcuts dialog for Resolve. I’m in Stage Manager mode when I see this behavior. iPad Pro 6th Gen on 18.0.1

I’ll keep playing around to see if there are any settings that alter that behavior.

 

[Ludatyk]

Currently on iPadOS 18.2… I don’t have this issue.

 

[citivolus]

Currently on iPadOS 18.2… I don’t have this issue.

Awesome, hopefully they fixed it in that release.

As an aside I continue to be amazed at the poor quality of Apple’s QA function. This bug took me two seconds to observe right after upgrading to iOS 18. Thankfully I could downgrade to 17.7 hoping they would fix it soon.

 

[DarkHorseDynamo]

Nice to know it wasn‘t ignored but that seems like a large enough issue to warrant including it in a patch release. I was hoping to work on an extended screen workflow but guess it will have to wait. Thanks for confirming @Ludatyk

*quick question… who is using a magic keyboard and who is using a 3rd party BT keyboard? Just wondering if it makes a difference. I have the issue using a 3rd party keyboard.

 

[citivolus]

I’m using an Apple USB keyboard. I also confirmed the bug when using my iPad’s Magic Keyboard.

 

[PolyStoly]

Awesome, hopefully they fixed it in that release.

As an aside I continue to be amazed at the poor quality of Apple’s QA function. This bug took me two seconds to observe right after upgrading to iOS 18. Thankfully I could downgrade to 17.7 hoping they would fix it soon.

Yea it drives me crazy, looks like bug is if you have apps on both screens it seems to be stealing focus from the keyboard somehow. If you keep apps on external monitor it works. But im glad to hear iPadOS 18.2 fixes this issue, i guess we have to wait till December.

 

[tijnski]

Same bug still present in iPadOS 18.1 .. hope it's resolved in iPadOS 18.2

 

[01cowherd]

I try out the iPad’s monitor support every few OS updates to see if it’s improved any, and encountered this issue within seconds of connecting to the monitor. A big emphasis on this:

As an aside I continue to be amazed at the poor quality of Apple’s QA function. This bug took me two seconds to observe right after upgrading to iOS 18.

I tend to keep a black image open on the iPad display since you can’t do clamshell mode, but then you run into this issue. It’s not just Command-Tab that’s broken, though; it seems like many system-level keyboard shortcuts are broken from this issue, including one of my favorites: Spotlight (Command-Space).

stealing focus from the keyboard somehow

Reminds of another bug I ran into. If you have a shortcut that asks for text input and trigger it from Spotlight, the keyboard always enters text into the Spotlight window even though the cursor is clearly blinking in the shortcut text input field. You have to exit the Spotlight popup before you can type into the shortcut.

 

[citivolus]

Now that the official 18.2 has been released today, would someone who has updated to it kindly confirm that this bug is now fixed? I would love to do so but can’t revert to 17.7 if it still is broken. Thanks!

 

[01cowherd]

Now that the official 18.2 has been released today, would someone who has updated to it kindly confirm that this bug is now fixed? I would love to do so but can’t revert to 17.7 if it still is broken. Thanks!

It’s working for me now on iPadOS 18.2. I have an app open full screen on the iPad and Command-Tab is working on the external display, plus a few other keyboard shortcuts that were broken for me.

 

[citivolus]

It’s working for me now on iPadOS 18.2. I have an app open full screen on the iPad and Command-Tab is working on the external display, plus a few other keyboard shortcuts that were broken for me.

Thank you for letting me know…I just updated and confirmed it works for me too!