iOS Outlook App - repeatedly closes on-screen keyboard (whilst typing!) and “attached” keyboard

Anonymous

I’ve been using iOS Outlook for a while on an iPad Pro. Apart from its quirky style, which is a bit of a steep learning curve, even coming from over a decade of using Outlook for Windows, it has a major keyboard bug. It closes the on-screen keyboard (whilst typing!) and even an “attached” physical keyboard is deactivated during typing.

This manifests itself thus: you can type two or three words, then the keyboard on the screen disappears. So you reload it, type a bit more, and it closes again.

It does exactly the same thing for at attached physical keyboard.

If I switch to the iOS Mail app (native Apple), I have no keyboard issues, either on screen or physical. The same is true for all other apps on the device.

This strongly supports the fact that the iOS Outlook app has a keyboard bug. I’ve reported this to my IT department, who say nobody else says it does this. I have seen online similar iOS keyboard issues with Microsoft apps in the recent past, so I suspect this is a known bug.

Solution is not to use iOS Outlook for typing. :-)

Anybody know a ‘fix’ for the app please? I’ve reinstalled it, to no benefit.

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Anonymous

2020-12-27T09:54:24+00:00

Only solution that worked for me so far is to delete the Outlook iOS app and switch to the native iOS Mail app.

iPad Pro 12,9 gen 4 with an Apple Magic Keyboard and I also tried using a Logitch MX Keys bluetooth keyboard. Everything updated to the latest firmware where possible. As soon as you stop typing for a few seconds the „focus“jumps away from the text entry area or the onscreen keyboard closes.

I guess the iOS suite of Office 365 it is not really a priority for Microsoft.

As a result I simply use the iOS Office suite as a 100% last resort when I have no internet connection. Othertimes I remote desktop (not using the Microsoft RDP app since that also comes with a load of comprimises and workarounds on keyboard, screen resultion) into my main workstation.
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Anonymous

2020-12-07T18:17:01+00:00

My understanding (which could be mistaken) is that outlook for iOS actually is a 3rd party app which MS acquired. I can imagine all sorts of problems that could result from that kind of situation.
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Anonymous

2020-12-07T17:37:14+00:00

I was fine for 3 months, but now it's back and driving me mad! What a device! What ineffective programming - unless the plan is deliberate to annoy people?
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Anonymous

2020-12-07T16:21:16+00:00

As somone else posted earlier in this thread, for me toggling “Backgound App Refresh” in the ipadOS settings sems to help for a while. This is a setting in the ipad settings gear, for Outlook, not a setting in Outlook. I can’t recall which setting (enabled or disabled) works better, but the idea is change that setting, go back to Outlook and use it until the keyboard closes on you, then switch it back again. This has keep me limping along for the better part of a year now.
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Anonymous

2020-11-30T16:18:52+00:00

Unfortunately, I tried this and it did not work...

My user has multiple iOS devices (2 iPads and an iPhone), all updated to latest iOS and have removed and reinstalled Outlook across all of his devices as well as reset the keyboard dictionary.

Crazy that this has been going on so long without acknowledgment or a definitive resolution.
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