Planning on buying a Magic Trackpad? Got a Magic Mouse? How about a magic Apple Keyboard? Then you’ll be gobbling up batteries like a kid at Christmas, which is why Apple’s just launched its own battery charger. It might not be branded as being “magic” but Cupertino reckons it’s super efficient, and of course, it looks lovely.
The Apple battery charger is a nice touch, if you ask us, although at $29 (and seemingly not available on the UK store) it’s a little pricey. It comes bundled with six AA batteries, and charges two of those at any time.
Apple reckons its rechargable batteries have a lifetime of 10 years, although it doesn’t say how many charging cycles that equates to, or how many hours of real world use.
Likewise, the Mac-maker reckons its batteries have “an extraordinarily low self-discharge rate” which means that “even after a year of sitting in a drawer, they still retain 80 percent of their original charge.”
Inside, Apple says the Apple battery charger is designed to be super efficient, intelligently using less power once your batteries are fully charged.
It explains the slight design tweak to Apple’s wireless keyboard earlier this year, when it switched from using three AA batteries to two. The Apple battery charger lets you use two batteries in your keyboard, two in your mouse or trackpad and have two charging at any one time.
The move to launch an Apple battery charger will also score Cupertino some brownie points with green campaigners, as Apple encourages customers to “finally break the cycle of buying and disposing of those toxic, single-use alkaline batteries.”
Us? We think it’s handy, and a logical extension of Apple’s quest to cut cables and make every Mac accessory wireless. We like the design, which features swappable mains connectors, so it’ll work around the world. The big question is, will you plump for Apple when it comes to snagging batteries for your tech?
Out now | $29 | Apple
