Can't get keyboard open in ios without manually clicking

ionic-v1
1

This has been asked many many times, but no solution is working for me. I want to open a modal with a text box that gets the focus and opens the keyboard in ios. Here’s my code:

HTML:

<label id="MessageInput" class="item item-input">
    <textarea id="MessageInput" placeholder="What do you want to say?" focusMe> </textarea>
</label>

JS (controller):

$timeout(function() {
 //set the focus so keyboard opens

 //for android
 if(window.cordova) cordova.plugins.Keyboard.show(); 

 //for ios
 document.getElementById('MessageInput').focus();

},700);

config.xml

<preference name="KeyboardDisplayRequiresUserAction" value="false"/>

Shouldn’t this open the keyboard? For ios (simulator and also hardware) the textinput does not take the focus, and thus the keyboard does not open.