Restoring the Onscreen iPad Keyboard

When I bought my iPad Air M3 to replace my older larger iPad Pro, I knew that most of the time the iPad was going to be affixed to my Ku Xiu Magnetic Charging Stand next to my Dell monitor. It's an extendable arm stand clamped to my desk that uses magnets to hold the iPad in place, and it charges via the Apple iPad Smart Connector, which is offical term for the pin contacts on the back of the iPad. Starting wtih iPadOs 26, the iPad treats devices attached to the Smart Connector as input devices, which means that the onscreen keyboard stopped appearing when I tapped into a text input while connected to the stand. To make things worse, the little toggle to turn the onscreen keyboard stopped appearing, too. In order to force the onscreen keyboard, I had to turn on Assistive Touch.

Open Settings > Accessibility > Touch > AssistiveTouch

Turn on AssistiveTouch

Under "Pointer Devices," turn on Show Onscreen Keyboard.

The one side effect is an often onscreen widget that displays the AssistiveTouch menu. You can disable this in the same menu by turning Always Show Menu off.