Spacebar freezes on iPad Air Smart Keyboard Folio

The spacebar on my iPad Air Smart Folio Keyboard freezes after an hour or two of use.

This is a hardware, rather than a software problem: I tap the spacebar and I can feel that it’s not moving. I exchanged the Smart Folio Keyboard at the Apple Store Wednesday, and now I’m having the same problem with the new keyboard, suggesting that either (1) There’s a quality control problem in the keyboard design and manufacture or (2) I’m doing something wrong myself.

Anybody else have any experience with this, or know of a fix?

I find if I take the iPad off the keyboard and put it back, that often resolves the problem for a while, although I often have to repeat the process a few times in rapid succession for this workaround to work.

Update: It might not have been the keyboard that was the problem. It might have been the lapdesk.

The lapdesk I have been using for some time is this one:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09L42PF9H/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It has a hemispherical foam bottom—kind of like a scaled-down beanbag chair—and a thin plastic work surface. I think maybe the flexiness was enough to bend the keyboard very, very slightly, just enough to freeze the spacebar.

I’m now using it on another lapdesk, with a hard wooden surface, and it seems to be working fine.

Weird!

By the way, the lapdesk I linked to is terrific, other than this odd problem. Assuming it is the problem.

1 Like

Another update: I went back to the beanbag-style lapdesk and found that if I turn it around back-to-front it works fine with the keyboard. Good grief, I could have saved myself significant hassle if I had tried that first!

1 Like