I'm building a planner app (React inside a Capacitor WKWebView shell). People handwrite and draw with the Pencil, and they also type longer notes on the keyboard. We want Scribble on, and we don't want to be forced into the small floating keyboard that comes with it. Ideally the user picks which keyboard they get.
What I'm seeing on an iPad MU162LL, iPadOS 26.7, Apple Pencil 1:
Tap a text field with the Pencil. A stray "." or "," gets typed, which looks like Scribble reading the tap as handwriting.
Only the small Pencil toolbar shows up (Scribble tool, up/down chevrons, mic, return). Its menu has Pencil Settings, Minimize, Show Keyboard and Show Emoji.
Show Keyboard brings up only the small floating keyboard. Pinching it open or dragging it to the bottom doesn't dock it. The menu on the keyboard's key only offers Hide Keyboard and Pencil Settings, with no Dock or Full.
It stays that way until I force quit the app. After a relaunch, a finger tap gives the normal docked keyboard, until I use the Pencil in a field again.
Sometimes, not every time, a finger tap after that also gets the floating keyboard. I haven't found a pattern.
It isn't specific to my app. It happens in Safari on google.com's search box, on an old build of my app from before any Pencil related code, and on another person's iPad. In Notes, the keyboard docks normally after Pencil use.
On the app side I've ruled out the Capacitor keyboard plugin's accessory bar handling, toggling inputmode="none", blurring and refocusing from JS, and the scene and Info.plist settings. No hardware keyboard is involved.
Most threads I found end at turning Scribble off. I tried that: with Scribble off, I force quit the app and reopened it, and the state was gone. Turning it off doesn't help us, since handwriting is the point.
What I've looked at so far:
WebKit's WKContentView installs its own UIIndirectScribbleInteraction and is its own delegate, so I don't see a hook there.
UIScribbleInteraction shouldBeginAt would suppress Scribble, but it also kills handwriting in the field. I haven't tried it on the web view yet, and I don't know whether an interaction on the WKWebView or its content view would be consulted for web content.
UIScribbleInteraction.isPencilInputExpected and UITextInputContext look read only. I can detect the state but not change it.
UIKeyboardLayoutGuide.followsUndockedKeyboard only helps layout.
Questions:
Is there a supported way for an app, or a web page in WKWebView, to ask for the docked keyboard, or to leave the Pencil input state, while keeping Scribble available?
Is it intended that the state lasts for the whole app session, and that a finger tap can also get the floating keyboard afterwards?
If there's no such API, is UIScribbleInteraction on the web view the intended way to opt a field out, and does it apply to web content?
Feedback Assistant: [I'll file one and add the number here].
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