There are two parts to this answer.

Part one – The iPad and other mobile devices will not work with the tinyMCE editor. This is not a problem with tinyMCE but with mobile browsers being behind the curve in development. They just do not support what they are supposed to support. They are getting there and we all hope Safari will work in it;s next release bit so far no.

So when SP detects a mobile device is being used it switches to force the use the plain text editor which WILL work fine with mobile devices.

Part two – This works as it should for me with my Pad, and my Samsung Galaxy. Works for Steve with whatever phone he has. But we have had one user for whom the switch did not work and tinyMCE was being served uo as the editor. And your users experience is exactly the behaviour we would expect. (And is nothing to do with other users sending a reply).

we were trying to work with the other user to make sense of this but sadly they did not seem to understand what we wanted them to do and finally they vanished! Maybe we can make more progress with you.

So the first question is when your user tries the forum on their iPad do they see the tinyMCE editor (i.e., do they see the toolbar?

Next question would be if you go to the forum admin > components > mobile panel, is the ‘iPad’ listed as a user agent in the touch devices list?

Yellow Swordfish said
Maybe we can make more progress with you.

Let’s hope so! I’ve asked the user for more information, and instructed her on how to set her preferred editor to plain text, if she is actually being provided with tinyMCE. I’ll report back as soon as I know more.

And yes, iPad was in the list of touch browser agents, but not in the list of mobile browser agents. Not knowing if it would make any difference, I moved iPad to the first position in the touch agents list, but I did not add it to the mobile browser list.

being first in the list wont matter…  and both lists will come across as mobile browser and tinymce not active…

so we will wait for the answers to andy’s questions…  my ipad 3 arrives Friday so may be able to try myself…

Mr Papa said
being first in the list wont matter…

Perhaps not, but doing so was the only change I made and the issue appears to be “better” at least for this user, though not thoroughly resolved…

We have had one user who was definitely getting the tinymce editor on their mobile but without the toolbar which made it look like the plain text editor. I am still investigating this although have made one or two changes for 5.0.2. Testing is the problem because as you can guess when I try on this site I DO get the right editor and have no problem posting!
The iPad only needs to be in the one list.

yeah, both the mobile and the touch lists are currently treated the same… and both entire lists are checked for a match…  someday there may be a difference if touch devices support js and/or tinycme better…

Yellow Swordfish said
We have had one user who was definitely getting the tinymce editor on their mobile but without the toolbar which made it look like the plain text editor…

Hmmm… how might one explain to a less technically adept user to confirm which editor they are seeing if there is no toolbar? Our iPad user said it was plain text only because there was no toolbar. Would the smileys show or is there another way to tell if it is tinyMCE if the toolbar is missing?

with plaintext editor, the key thing would be the toolbar missing… smileys would still be present…

Mr Papa said
with plaintext editor, the key thing would be the toolbar missing…

According to Andy’s last comment then, I guess I have no way of telling if our user actually had the plain text editor or tinyMCE at the time of the issue occurring, since she only mentioned the toolbar missing.

about the only way would be to look at the page source and see if the tinymce js is loaded… but not beginner level…

maybe Andy will know another way…

I am not even sure HOW to look at page source on the iPad!

Let me give it some thought…

here is a good way to view source from safari on ipad:

http://banagale.com/view-source-from-safari-on-ipad.htm