Hardware keyboard repeating on Flutter 2.5(iOS)

Flutter 2.5 landed a few weeks ago and the improvements are pretty decent. I've been busy slowly updating most of my apps to 2.5.2 and the experience has been mostly smooth so far. However, there is one particular issue that I did want to highlight in this post today: external(hardware) keyboards are broken on iOS on Flutter 2.5.

Repeating keys

I actually noticed this pretty early on but I thought that it might be an issue with Xcode 13 or iOS 15(or maybe even the fact I'm using an M1 Mac?). It turns out it was actually a regression that slipped by in Flutter 2.5. Anyway to be really concise about what is happening: external/hardware(bluetooth etc.) keyboards are broken on Flutter 2.5 for iOS. From what I've heard this issue isn't present on Android. When you try and type with a hardware keyboard keys end up repeating or getting missed. The following image might help to understand things visually:

Will it get fixed?

I'm sure it will get fixed eventually. The issue that was filed is currently a 'P4' in terms of priority ranking. A P4 is classed as '...we are not planning to work on it anytime soon, but we agree it's something we should work on in the coming years'. I personally kind of feel like this ranking is a little bit low. For apps that don't have a lot of text editing in them it's probably okay, but not if your app is business-related or is actually some kind of text editor. There's a pretty high chance that you might have users that use iPads in that scenario and I'm sure there are plenty of people that use a bluetooth or external keyboard with their iPads...

What can be done?

I'm guessing if you are searching about this issue then you probably have encountered it yourself. All we can really do at the moment is wait for things to be investigated and for a fix to arrive(hopefully it is something that can be cherrypicked into a minor release...). If you're like me and you think that P4 isn't high enough then check out the issue that was filed and add a thumbs up or voice your opinion about it like others have.