Apple denial + soldering iron = fixed Smart Keyboard for 10.5” iPad Pro

Many of us who have iPad Pros know about the Smart Keyboard problems. After a while, the darned thing just loses connectivity with the keyboard. This failure is often accompanied by messages that the accessory isn’t supported. After a lot of frustration, I took to my favorite search engine for relief. When I saw an article proclaiming that Apple had extended the warranty support to 3 years for Smart Keyboards, I got excited, only to have my hopes dashed by reading that only the 9.7-inch and 12.9-inch models were covered. I purchased my 10.5” model in the fall of 2017, and Apple apparently doesn’t care what problems I—and other 10.5” iPad Pro owners—have, even if they’re the exact same problems people with the other sizes have.

What the actual heck, Apple? You know that doesn’t make any sense, right? Why are you picking on the middle children?

All was not lost, however. Just before I was about to commit to a purchase of a new keyboard that wasn’t made by Apple (hey, if they’re going to force me to spend money that others don’t have to spend for the same issue, then I’ll give the money to some other company), I did some more searching, and I found a couple of beautiful videos on YouTube about vloggers who fixed their iPad Pro Smart Keyboards using soldering irons. 

The wheels started turning. I have had a soldering iron for a long time, but my one attempt to use it was a dismal failure. I wasn’t sure I wanted to do this at all. Even one of the vloggers had a mishap; his hand slipped, and the iron burned a bit of the strip that houses the keyboard connectors; fortunately, the damage was just cosmetic. With my lack of experience, I thought it was too risky. I settled for bending the connector strip so that the nubs on the base protruded more, and that worked for a few weeks, though I had to bend it a little bit more as time went on.

Tonight, however, I started to bend the connector strip again, and I heard a tiny crack. I thought my little Smart Keyboard was done for. It was giving me the unsupported device error messages, and nothing I was doing could convince it to cooperate. I had finally reached the point my soldering iron was waiting for: things were so bad that I couldn't make things any worse. It was fix or toss time. 

I took a flat piece of metal and drew some tiny dots on it with a Sharpie. I used that to practice the technique of getting a bead of metal on the tip of the soldering iron and dabbing a spot to leave the metal right where I wanted. Once I thought I had the timing and aiming down, I went for the keyboard. Unlike the YouTube vloggers, I couldn't see one contact lower than the rest; they were all depressed, so I put a dot of solder on each one. Like one of the guys, my hand did slip, and I burned a little bit of the plastic, but I think my keyboard fared better than his. It sure is an ugly job, though; no pretty, rounded and even mushroom caps for me:

I’m using the keyboard to type this, so I guess my grandmother was right: pretty is as pretty does. Thank you, YouTubers! I’m now a little less angry with Apple. I'm still of the opinion that I shouldn’t have had to do it, but I’m really pleased with my success.