I got my iPad Back. Am I sorry about all those nasty things I said about Apple? Not in the least because this is big business at it's worst. Okay. Enough whining and griping from me. Here is the fix. It was aimed at iPhone users, but it does work on the iPad just fine. As in most software bugs, things aren't what they appear to be. The Caps-lock works correctly but the reporting of it's status is what is broken. I will condense what little I have learned so far. From: Sarah k Alawami <marri...@gmail.com> She reported that turning quicknav on helps. You do that by pressing the Left-arrow and Right-arrow keys simultaneously. The system reports that quicknav is on. This gives you your arrows back but I would call this "teaser mode" because you can't yet click on/select any of the fields that are tantalizingly now reported as you arrow back and forth. Also, another bug in IOS8 is that voiceover crashes when one is using the arrow keys plus probably a few other things. The system goes silent briefly and you here "Voiceover on" and find that you are now back at the start of the list of available links to arrow through. This is annoying but if you arrow through things a little more slowly, it seems to crash less often. Time to go down another rabbit hole. One of the google searches I did turned up the following set of instructions on applevis. Follow these carefully. The following words are not mine but lifted from the email being referenced. Quoting:
AppleVis If your Bluetooth keyboard doesn't work with VoiceOver except just a few functions in iOS 8.0, try the following steps to resolve the issue. Once the problem disappears, it doesn't appear again unless you change the iPhone language in Settings, General, Language & Region. To make the problem disappear from your iPhone, follow these steps: 1. If you use just one software keyboard, temporarily add an arbitrary one in Settings, General, Keyboard, Keyboards, Add New Keyboard. 2. Open the Notes app. 3. Create a new note. 4. Press the left arrow key and the right arrow key simultaneously to turn off the quick navigation option. 5. Hold down the command key and press the space key several times to cycle through the list of software keyboards. 6. Press the left arrow key and the right arrow key simultaneously to turn on the quick navigation option. 7. Now your Bluetooth keyboard should work fine except other iOS bugs. 8. You may delete the software keyboard temporarily added at Settings, General, Keyboard, Keyboards. This is a copy of the email sent to RiVO customers to resolve the issue (http://goo.gl/GiBvWy) since it should also resolve the problem for other Bluetooth keyboards as well. End of quote This is Martin speaking now. After activating notes from the touch screen, I selected compose and did as the instructions said. I had selected a Spanish keyboard as the software keyboard so I typed Command+Space and heard Espaniole then English and then Espaniole again as there were now two software keyboards. I left it on English. You then just get out of notes and the BT KB now works as well as it did in IOS6. The IOS8 accessibility stack was simply not ready for prime time. While I do not have any inside knowledge of how the OS works, it appears that various parts of the system are not speaking to each other during installation and setup. If your are using an English or Russian or Chinese locale, all important modules such as the keyboard translator should understand which character sets to use without the end user having to essentially initialize them. In unix, we call this the environment and make use of environmental variables and it generally works beautifully. IOS is not unix but the concept is an old and tested one. We are using XYZ language so everything that deals with text and fonts knows this and behaves accordingly unless specifically told otherwise. I hope this helps somebody. Knowledge is worth a lot more when it is concentrated in one place. Treasure hunts are fun and challenging but sometimes, we just want stuff to work. Martin <--- Mac Access At Mac Access Dot Net ---> To reply to this post, please address your message to mac-access@mac-access.net You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Mac-Access forum at the list's public Mail Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/mac-access@mac-access.net/>. Subscribe to the list's RSS feed from: <http://www.mail-archive.com/mac-access@mac-access.net/maillist.xml> As the Mac Access Dot Net administrators, we always strive to ensure that the Mac-Access E-Mal list remains malware, spyware, Trojan, virus and worm-free. However, this should in no way replace your own security strategy. We assume neither liability nor responsibility should something unpredictable happen. Please remember to update your membership preferences periodically by visiting the list website at: <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/mac-access/options/>