Magic Mouse Blamed for Draining Bluetooth Keyboard Batteries [Updated]

Over the weekend, TUAW pointed to a growing chorus of complaints in Apple's discussion forums from users who have seen poor battery life from their Apple wireless keyboards after moving to the company's new Magic Mouse, which began shipping in late October. According to the reports, some users are finding that their wireless keyboards are running through batteries on a nearly-weekly basis since switching to the Magic Mouse, although an exact cause of the problem has not yet been determined.

Some have guessed that the Magic Mouse is preventing the keyboard from going into sleep mode. One user swapped his Magic Mouse with a Logitech model and saw the problem disappear, while another claims to have heard from Apple Tech Support that this is a known Bluetooth driver issue and that a fix is in the works.

The issue, which was noted early last month by MacNN, has begun receiving more attention as it continues to be unresolved. The complaints appear to be coming from users of Apple's older, three-battery aluminum wireless keyboard, which was replaced with a new, two-battery version that initially shipped with Apple's new iMacs released in October and also made available for individual sale. Few, if any, reports have come from users of the new keyboard model, although it is unclear if the new model is unaffected or if there is simply a larger sample of users of the older model who would be more likely to notice a change in battery performance than recent purchasers of the new model.

Update: One MacRumors reader claims to have received an e-mail from Steve Jobs this morning in response to his contact about the issue. In the brief response typical of the Apple CEO, Jobs reportedly notes that the company is working on a fix for the issue.

We know. A software fix is coming soon. Sorry for the problem.

Steve