I’ve had my 12.9“ for a week. Fully charged at 10pm last night. Checked at 11:30am today and battery was at 92%.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
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?)
- Thread starter nyc232
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
It's not you. I've had that same problem intermittently for several months. I've been in touch with Apple customer support, dealt with 4 CS workers, been stood up by them for call back appointments and the last word that I got from them was "we have engineers working on it and will be in touch." That was three weeks ago and it's still happening.
yes I have noticed the same problem recently. Full charge at night and it drained to 50% by noon. I didn’t even used the ipad or the keyboard during that time. Ipad battery is perfect without the keyboard.
Anybody exchange their keyboard or find a fix for this? I’ve got very significant battery drain whenever the keyboard is attached and I’m getting pretty frustrated. I would have thought a software update would have come along and fixed this by now if it was indeed a software issue.
Haven’t really notice the drains since I bought my IPP 11” 2020 with the MK two weeks ago.
I used both constantly together, almost never detached. I got around 4-6 hours of screen time with mix heavy usage (non gaming).
Then on a Friday night, I leave the IPP attached and closed down with the MK at 60% battery.
On Sunday noon I open it to find the battery was already empty (0%).
I do leave the internet connection on with some notifications pouring in from few apps, but I’m sure it would not drain all the battery in given time. So there is a problem actually.
I’m gonna try to detached the MK every time I’m not gonna use the IPP and see if it’s the MK that causing this.
I examined the MK light and found no issue. It only stays on in dim situation and instantly turning off when closed down.
The light also turning off when the keyboard not being use (around 15 seconds or so).
I do hope it’s a software bug. It’s gonna be pain to return the MK with hard to prove evidence like this kinda case.
I used both constantly together, almost never detached. I got around 4-6 hours of screen time with mix heavy usage (non gaming).
Then on a Friday night, I leave the IPP attached and closed down with the MK at 60% battery.
On Sunday noon I open it to find the battery was already empty (0%).
I do leave the internet connection on with some notifications pouring in from few apps, but I’m sure it would not drain all the battery in given time. So there is a problem actually.
I’m gonna try to detached the MK every time I’m not gonna use the IPP and see if it’s the MK that causing this.
I examined the MK light and found no issue. It only stays on in dim situation and instantly turning off when closed down.
The light also turning off when the keyboard not being use (around 15 seconds or so).
I do hope it’s a software bug. It’s gonna be pain to return the MK with hard to prove evidence like this kinda case.
The current software has a bug that will both keep the backlight on even when the iPad screen is locked and also will cause the backlight to not come on at all. Both are intermittent issues and if you have the backlighting set to minimal you may not even notice in certain situations. Both are corrected by detaching the keyboard and reattaching it or rebooting the iPad. I have both of these occur about once a week. If you close up the case with the backlight on I would imagine there would be considerable battery drain.
Without these issues I have no battery drain whatsoever with the keyboard attached when I’m not using the iPad. If it’s at 90-100% in the morning I can close up the case and come back at 2 or 3pm, a normal pattern for me, and it’s still at 90-100%.
Without these issues I have no battery drain whatsoever with the keyboard attached when I’m not using the iPad. If it’s at 90-100% in the morning I can close up the case and come back at 2 or 3pm, a normal pattern for me, and it’s still at 90-100%.
This is strange.
I left my IPP unattached to the MK and the battery didn’t dropped a single percent on almost 12 hours standby mode.
Also only dropped 2% during standby with the MK shortly after that for 8 hours standby mode.
Both with the internet connection stays on.
It looks like this is a software issue with detaching and reattaching the MK to solve it.
Hopew future software update resolve this permanently.
Yes, I got both the 11” IPP 2020 and MK on June 12th. Have had significant battery drain and noticed intermittent problems of the backlight keyboard staying on when case is closed and the opposite problem of backlighting not coming on in a totally dark room. In both cases, the sliders in settings become inactive. After multiple calls to Tech Support Apple replaced my MK but after 2 weeks on the new MK the issue still persists. Talked with Apple Tech Support this morning. Today is the first time Apple acknowledged that they are aware of the problem. They are having me do some tests for their engineers. They asked anyone with this issue please call Apple Tech Support, 800-275-2273, and ask to have the problem escalated to a Senior Advisor and get a case number. They want to get as much info to their engineers as possible. In the meantime, if you unmount the IPP and remount it, reboot, that seems to resolve the issue...very frustrating.
Both those issues occur about once a week for me. Just removing and then re-attaching the keyboard fixes it for a time. Definitely software, I’ve previously participated on beta releases so I have access to Feedback Assistant and have submitted files concerning the issues by this mechanism.
I have the exact same problems. Apple replaced my MK about 2 weeks ago but the issue still persists. Today is the first time Apple acknowledged they are aware of the problem. They want anyone with the issue to call Apple Tech Support, 800-275-2273, and ask to have the issue escalated to a Senior Advisor and get a case number. They are trying to get as much info to their engineers as possible.
I spoke to four advisors, each escalating to a higher lever and got a case number a month ago. They ran diagnostics on my iPad but nobody offered to replace my keyboard. They told me they'd get back to me, but so far, no response.
After raising a ruckus a couple of days ago, I finally got a response from Apple software engineers. So, are any of you experiencing this problem while using iOS 13.6?
They asked to see if I was using 13.6. I am, and so far, no problems, but I've gone a few weeks with no problems before and then suddenly it happens again. I'm cautiously optimistic.
This is because the iPad Pro comes with 101-106% of the designed battery capacity.
It can take several months or a whole year to use up that additional capacity. My iPad Pro that i just bought has 105.6% of the original design capacity.
———————
Back on topic, my 2020 11” iPad Pro does experience excessive battery drain while using the Magic Keybaord. I’ve been scrolling through macrumors for 20-30 mins or so and I’ve already dropped from 96% to 92%
Edit: Ope! It dropped to 91% after typing this reply.
Last edited:
Could it be the way that iPad OS renders the cursor...what I mean is that this OS wasn't designed for a cursor, so it has to do extra computing to render it on-top of the regular touch input UI?
Or it could be having an extra device sucking power from the smart connector (that being the trackpad). If the Trackpad 2 with its own battery has less battery drain, then this second reason could be the cause.
Or it could be having an extra device sucking power from the smart connector (that being the trackpad). If the Trackpad 2 with its own battery has less battery drain, then this second reason could be the cause.
If it’s not a bug, I’d reckon it’s the trackpad causing the excess battery drain.
Checking in... I've not noticed "the problem," battery drain when the iPad is turned off and attached to the Magic Keyboard since the upgrade to iOS 13.6. Anybody else notice this?
13.6.1 was where I noticed the big difference. Since about 13.3.2 I’ve been having standby battery drain issues, and that was even before I had the Magic Keyboard. I don’t think this had much to do with the keyboard itself, honestly. I think it was just an iOS issue. Nothing I ever tried helped.
For example—I took mine off the charger yesterday morning and then didn’t end up using it at all until over 24 hours later. In that time period, it only went down about 4%. Before 13.6.1 it would have gone from 100% to 80% in that time frame. I’ve actually been keeping an eye on this for the last week or so just to make sure it’s not in my imagination, and it’s definitely not. I love that they seem to have finally fixed this and I hope they don’t do something in the next release to jack it all up again.
Just to bump this up, iPadOS 13.7 is giving me the best standby battery life I’ve seen in months. When I leave it unused overnight, the battery drain is minimal, even with the Pencil and Magic Keyboard attached. I’m also getting well over 10 hours of active usage out of it in one charge.
I had standby drain issues with both the 2018 11” Pro and the 2020 12.9” Pro. I’ve officially decided that whatever was causing it has been fixed by Apple at this point. I’m also pleasantly surprised to discover that it didn’t reintroduce any multi tasking issues for me.
I had standby drain issues with both the 2018 11” Pro and the 2020 12.9” Pro. I’ve officially decided that whatever was causing it has been fixed by Apple at this point. I’m also pleasantly surprised to discover that it didn’t reintroduce any multi tasking issues for me.
That is really great to hear. I just got the MK about a month ago, and I haven’t had any battery drain issues, so I think I just was fortunate to be at the stage that Apple fixed their bugs by the time I hopped on the train.
Do you have keyboard backlighting on? Thats the only setting that I’ve had disabled since the beginning as I don’t use the ipad in pitch black and touch type.
I have it on, but I always make sure it is off before I close the iPad. I usually just hit the sleep/wake button real quick to make sure it turns off. I've been bitten by that bug a couple of times, but I think it's mostly gone now anyway.
Today I started at 93% and worked for about 9 hours straight with no lunch break. I had about 2.5 hours worth of conference calls and watched about an hour of video during that too. At the end of all that, my iPad Pro was at 5%. So real world usage remains great too.