The touch screen on some iPad Pros can become unresponsive at times. This can mean that the iPad Pro will sometimes not respond to any touch at all, that it will ignore touches, gestures, or swipes intermittently, that the screen will stutter or freeze after a touch, or that it will even drop deliberate touches like typing letters on the iPad Pro’s on-screen touch keyboard.
If your iPad Pro’s touch screen becomes unresponsive at random, try the methods below to see if they can help you improve or fix the problem. If the problem persists, you can take your iPad to any authorized iPad screen repair center and get it fixed.
Tips to Fix Your iPad Pro Unresponsive Screen
While it’s understandable to be concerned when your iPad Pro refuses to respond to any touch, do not panic or send an email immediately to Apple’s help team. Instead, check for problems that are causing your iPad Pro screen to become unresponsive. There could be several causes for the unresponsive touch problem.
Whatever be the problem, before you take your iPad to any authorized iPad screen repair center, make sure you try out the following tips.
1. Clean the screen
Clean the iPad Pro screen before you do anything else. To avoid mistakenly tapping on something you don’t want, use the screen lock button, and then all you need is a simple cloth and a small quantity of water. You can clean with a moderately moist towel, but avoid using any abrasive chemicals or cleaners.
Because grease, dirt, or food smudges on the iPad Pro screen can cause the screen to become unresponsive to touch, cleaning the screen is a simple remedy to this problem.
2. Remove the case and/or the screen protector if applicable
Many iPad Pro owners safeguard their devices with cases, which often include or have a built-in screen protector. If the unresponsive touch screen issue persists, consider locking the device screen and removing the case and screen protector from the iPad Pro.
Touch screen difficulties are frequently resolved by simply removing an ill-fitting cover or screen protector. It’s worth noting that this problem has been reported by iPad Pro users with both glass and plastic screen protectors, so it’s unclear whether one type of screen protector improves or worsens the problem, or if they’re even related because users without screen protectors have also reported the randomly unresponsive iPad Pro touch screen issue.
3. On the iPad Pro, update the system software
Back up to iCloud (or iTunes on a PC, or both), and then go to Settings > General > Software Update to install any system software upgrades that are available for the iPad Pro.
It’s possible that the sometimes unresponsive touch screen issue is caused by a bug or other issue unique to certain versions of iOS / iPadOS, thus updating the iPad Pro’s system software may assist.
4. Touch accommodations should be enabled
If the iPad Pro screen remains unresponsive to touch regularly, you can enable Touch Accommodations in the system settings.
For iPads running iOS 13 and later: Turn on “Touch Accommodations” in Settings > Accessibility > Touch Accommodations. For iPhones and iPads running iOS 12 and earlier: Turn on ‘Touch Accommodations’ in Settings > General > Accessibility > Touch Accommodations.
Turning on the function can alleviate the unresponsive touch screen issue for some iPad Pro users without having to activate or adjust any other setting inside the Touch Accommodations area. This particular suggestion came from a user on the Apple discussion forum.
5. Turn off the Tap to Wake feature.
Disabling Tap to Wake on the iPad Pro has helped some customers with their unresponsive touch screen issues.
Turn off “Tap to Wake” by going to Settings > General > Accessibility.
6. Restart the iPad Pro forcibly
The unresponsive touch screen issue on the iPad Pro has been reported to be temporarily resolved by forcing the device to reboot. Here’s how to do it if you’re not familiar with the procedure:
Force restarting the iPad Pro (new versions without Home buttons): Press and hold the Volume Up, Volume Down, and Power buttons until the Apple logo appears on the screen.
Force-restart older iPad Pro devices with the Home button: Hold down the Power and Home buttons until the Apple logo appears on the screen. The touch screen should be responsive and perform as intended when the device boots up again, at least for a while.
7. Do you own an Apple Pencil? It should be disconnected and then reconnected
Surprisingly, several users claim that detaching and reconnecting the Apple Pencil from their iPad Pro fixes the unresponsive touch screen problem. Of course, if you don’t have an Apple Pencil, none of this matters.
8. Backup and restore are the eighth and final steps in the process
It’s also possible that backing up and restoring the data will fix the problem. I know this is the most inane piece of troubleshooting advice but it’s also a step that Apple will need of you before a device can be serviced through warranty programs, so you should do it whether you want to or not. Simply back up your iPad Pro to iCloud or iTunes, then restore it from iTunes, or reset it and restore it from an iCloud backup.
Conclusion
It’s unclear how widespread the unresponsive touch screen iPad Pro issue is, although it’s been reported on practically all iPad Pro models. If the unresponsive touch screen problem on your iPad Pro persists after you’ve tried all of the above remedies, you should contact official Apple Support and have them try to resolve the issue with you or you can take it to any authorized iPad screen repair center and have it fixed.
