Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

iPad Pro Magic Keyboard (Battery Drain?)

N

nyc232

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 28, 2008
45
44
Is it me, or this thing draining the iPad’s battery when not in use? 100% @ 3pm, no use at all and now 80% @ 5pm.

Any one else seeing this? Thanks.

*11 inch iPad Pro (2018), with 13.4.1 iPad OS
 
  • Like
Reactions: Catspore and Apples Apples Everywhere
Only have had mine for about 2 days, but I’m not seeing any additional drain either while using it or when it’s dormant.
 
I’m not having that issue at all. I was curious about that and have carefully checked it for the past couple days of having it. No battery drain at all on my iPad from the Magic Keybaord.
 
Yeah, I’ve noticed some additional battery drain. I’m not getting less than 10 hours normal usage out of mine, down from over 11 hours. Using the trackpad seems to push the processor to around 30% usage vs a baseline of around 12% without. iPad Pro 11” 2018. So if you’re scrolling around a lot with the trackpad I can see it affecting your battery life.
 
CaTOAGU said:
Yeah, I’ve noticed some additional battery drain. I’m not getting less than 10 hours normal usage out of mine, down from over 11 hours. Using the trackpad seems to push the processor to around 30% usage vs a baseline of around 12% without. iPad Pro 11” 2018. So if you’re scrolling around a lot with the trackpad I can see it affecting your battery life.
Click to expand...
Yeah I get that, my concern is the excessive drain when the iPad is sleeping.
 
nyc232 said:
Yeah I get that, my concern is the excessive drain when the iPad is sleeping.
Click to expand...

I was having that issue on my 2018 11" iPad Pro since about 13.1 or 13.2. I tried everything I knew to fix it, including a full blown DFU restore without restoring from backup after. Nothing fixed it. Eventually I sent it in to Apple and they ended up replacing it. The replacement model was doing a lot better, but still draining a lot more in standby than it should be. I have a feeling it's a software issue, not a hardware issue.

My 2020 12.9" iPad Pro and Magic Keyboard are coming tomorrow. I'll probably start setting everything up on Tuesday-ish, because that's when my skins and stuff are coming in. I'll try to remember to let you all know how it goes. I'm planning on setting everything up new and not restoring from backup from my old 11" setup.
 
nyc232 said:
Yeah I get that, my concern is the excessive drain when the iPad is sleeping.
Click to expand...

It doesn't seem likely. The only real drain is the keyboard backlight, which should be off when the iPad/MK is closed or when the iPad is asleep.

With that said, it's possible that there is some parasitic drain. You'd probably need a meter hooked up to verify.
 
Mine has drained a fair amount today. 30% left with 6 hours screen time although 3 hours, 20 mins of that was YouTube.
 
The Game 161 said:
Mine has drained a fair amount today. 30% left with 6 hours screen time although 3 hours, 20 mins of that was YouTube.
Click to expand...
How does your 12.9" Pro do when in standby though? I've found that over the last couple of OS releases, regardless of iPad model, standby drain has increased. Back in the old days an iPad could sit there in standby for a day or two and not even drain 1%. That is definitely NOT the case anymore. I know things have changed a lot since then and these devices are doing a lot more in the background than they used to, but sometimes the standby drain seems excessive to me. If it's an app I'm using regularly that's causing it, I don't know what it is, because nothing shows up in the battery report. The only thing I ever see is Siri, and that's not even every hour. Only solution I've ever found is turning off wifi when the iPad wasn't in use, which tells me it might be something with iCloud sync.
 
spiderman0616 said:
How does your 12.9" Pro do when in standby though? I've found that over the last couple of OS releases, regardless of iPad model, standby drain has increased. Back in the old days an iPad could sit there in standby for a day or two and not even drain 1%. That is definitely NOT the case anymore. I know things have changed a lot since then and these devices are doing a lot more in the background than they used to, but sometimes the standby drain seems excessive to me. If it's an app I'm using regularly that's causing it, I don't know what it is, because nothing shows up in the battery report. The only thing I ever see is Siri, and that's not even every hour. Only solution I've ever found is turning off wifi when the iPad wasn't in use, which tells me it might be something with iCloud sync.
Click to expand...

Well my normal usage is use my iPad from 8am til 7pm and won’t pick it up again until say 10pm ish for say an hour tops. and it drops i would say 2% in that time so not a big deal to be fair standby time wise.

It’s hard to measure my battery drain today as i have used YouTube a lot which is bound to take a hit. Normally i get a good 8 hours usage since i got the MK. I Charge everyday due for using this for work monday-Friday as well as stuff like YouTube.
 
The Game 161 said:
Well my normal usage is use my iPad from 8am til 7pm and won’t pick it up again until say 10pm ish for say an hour tops. and it drops i would say 2% in that time so not a big deal to be fair standby time wise.

It’s hard to measure my battery drain today as i have used YouTube a lot which is bound to take a hit. Normally i get a good 8 hours usage since i got the MK. I Charge everyday due for using this for work monday-Friday as well as stuff like YouTube.
Click to expand...
Yeah, that's always the challenge as far as testing when you're a heavy user. I use mine all day every day too. During the day it sits on my desk right in front of my company Mac and does work related stuff, and then at night it's used for my personal creative projects, games, movies, reading, etc. To get a good gauge on standby drain I have to stop using it, which is a pain in the butt---leaves a large hole in my daily workflow.

My 2020 12.9" is out for delivery right now. I'm going to set it up as brand new and see if that makes a difference. I even deleted my 2018 11" backup so I wouldn't be tempted to use it.
 
nyc232 said:
Is it me, or this thing draining the iPad’s battery when not in use? 100% @ 3pm, no use at all and now 80% @ 5pm.

Any one else seeing this? Thanks.

*11 inch iPad Pro (2018), with 13.4.1 iPad OS
Click to expand...

I only about about 2.5 hours with iPad Pro 2020 12.9 going from 90% to 50% using magic keyboard... Theres definitely something funky about the two... It really should drain battery that much... During day, light up keyboard should be off
 
My 2018 iPad Pro 11 usually burns about 0.5% per hour overnight (so all standby). When attached to the MK (again closed overnight, totally unused) the battery fell at a rate higher than 1% per hour. Sounds like a parasitic drain issue
 
karthik02 said:
My 2018 iPad Pro 11 usually burns about 0.5% per hour overnight (so all standby). When attached to the MK (again closed overnight, totally unused) the battery fell at a rate higher than 1% per hour. Sounds like a parasitic drain issue
Click to expand...

I noticed the other day that sometimes the backlighting stays on even with the case closed, which drained a lot of battery on mine.
 
I have not seen the backlighting stay on with the case closed. And while it’s closed my battery level barely budges. I can take it off the charger and a couple hours later it’s still at 100% if I haven’t used it. But there is definitely a battery drain associated with using the keyboard. I’m experimenting today with watching how much the the drain is while avoiding using the trackpad since I saw several mentions of that being a factor. I’m keeping the backlight enabled but at, hopefully, a low enough level to not be too much of a drain. The backlighting is one of the main reasons I considered buying this.

I’m also going to try to compare this with the Smart Keyboard folio which I also have. If there is a huge difference, I expect more of a drain with the MKB, it may not be worth it to me to keep the new one. There also have been several weird issues including the impaired scrolling issue with the trackpad that comes up occasionally. That gets resolved with a restart but combined with some other oddities I’m not as pleased with this as I thought I would be. One just occurred, I made an error in typing the last sentence and I wanted to move the cursor to correct it and tried to tap the screen to place it where I wanted but the screen was unresponsive. I could move the cursor by the arrow keys or the trackpad but not by touch/tapping. That occurs occasionally but normally clears up quickly.
 
karthik02 said:
My 2018 iPad Pro 11 usually burns about 0.5% per hour overnight (so all standby). When attached to the MK (again closed overnight, totally unused) the battery fell at a rate higher than 1% per hour. Sounds like a parasitic drain issue
Click to expand...

Yeah, the parasitic drain annoys me too, but only because I like waking up and seeing my iPP at 100% battery life haha.
 
I have to wonder if what some of you are seeing is the same battery drain problem I've had for the last few versions of iPadOS. Starting at about 13.1.2 or maybe 3, I started having severe battery drain in standby with my 2018 11" iPad Pro attached to the Smart Keyboard Folio. During use it drained at a normal rate. But in standby, I'd lose a percent an hour on average. So if I let it sit for 24 hours and did nothing with it at all, it would drain anywhere from 20 to 25%.

After trying resetting it and restoring it from backup, resetting it and NOT restoring it from backup, and then a full blown DFU restore without restoring from backup, I eventually gave up trying to fix it and got it replaced by Apple. I set the new one up from backup and it had the same issue.

I eventually sold that model and got my 12.9" 2020 iPad Pro and Magic Keyboard a couple of weeks ago. I set it up as brand new and did not restore from my backup from my last iPad Pro. It is still draining about the same amount in standby. The battery usage chart shows nothing is using any power in the background while in standby. Everything is 0's.

The only thing that makes it stop is if I turn wifi off every time I am done using it and turn it back on when I need to use it again. So that tells me that iPadOS is doing something with the internet connection pretty much constantly while the iPad is supposed to be in standby.

I'm not trying to explain away any of the problems any of you are having--I'm just saying that it's possible that some of you didn't notice this before and are just now noticing it because the keyboard problem came up in some headlines.
 
spiderman0616 said:
I have to wonder if what some of you are seeing is the same battery drain problem I've had for the last few versions of iPadOS. Starting at about 13.1.2 or maybe 3, I started having severe battery drain in standby with my 2018 11" iPad Pro attached to the Smart Keyboard Folio. During use it drained at a normal rate. But in standby, I'd lose a percent an hour on average. So if I let it sit for 24 hours and did nothing with it at all, it would drain anywhere from 20 to 25%.

After trying resetting it and restoring it from backup, resetting it and NOT restoring it from backup, and then a full blown DFU restore without restoring from backup, I eventually gave up trying to fix it and got it replaced by Apple. I set the new one up from backup and it had the same issue.

I eventually sold that model and got my 12.9" 2020 iPad Pro and Magic Keyboard a couple of weeks ago. I set it up as brand new and did not restore from my backup from my last iPad Pro. It is still draining about the same amount in standby. The battery usage chart shows nothing is using any power in the background while in standby. Everything is 0's.

The only thing that makes it stop is if I turn wifi off every time I am done using it and turn it back on when I need to use it again. So that tells me that iPadOS is doing something with the internet connection pretty much constantly while the iPad is supposed to be in standby.

I'm not trying to explain away any of the problems any of you are having--I'm just saying that it's possible that some of you didn't notice this before and are just now noticing it because the keyboard problem came up in some headlines.
Click to expand...
I haven't tried to sort things out as scientifically as you have, but I will confirm that with nothing at all running there is a noticeably greater battery drain with wifi on. I've gotten into the habit of turning it off if I'm leaving the iPad for a while.
 
  • Like
Reactions: spiderman0616
So far with either the MKB or my keyboard folio and my 2018 12.9 iPP there is absolutely no battery drain when the device isn’t being used. If I lock the screen after taking it off the charger and come back hours later it’s still at 100%. Very pleased.
 
papbot said:
So far with either the MKB or my keyboard folio and my 2018 12.9 iPP there is absolutely no battery drain when the device isn’t being used. If I lock the screen after taking it off the charger and come back hours later it’s still at 100%. Very pleased.
Click to expand...

it can be somewhat deceiving if you just took it off the charger. It takes a lot longer to go from 100% to 99% than it does to go from 99% to 98%.
 
Even after using it for a few minutes, checking my emails, then locking it 3 hours later it’s 100%. I’m happy. There are other issues that I’m cranky about but that’s not one of them.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back