Jeff Perry, writing at Rocket Panda:
This is just a quick little tip for iPad users out there. If you are like me and using the Smart Keyboard or any keyboard that doesn’t have an Escape key you can press command . and that will most likely work as a way to escape from any text input you are in.
I think I’ve heard of this vaguely in the past. But after seeing this post, I tried it in a few different places in iOS, and I can confirm that it’s probably the closest escape key alternative.
The escape key on a Mac does all kind of things. Such as cancelling a drag action, cancelling some kind of input, or closing a temporary window. This “escape key” is more limited, in that I’ve only see it escape from text entry. That doesn’t mean it’s not handy though, and I’m sure I’ll use this quite a bit.