My brother has had a problem with his MacBook wherein his battery continues to drain even after he closes the lid and the laptop – indicated by the pulsing light on the front – enters the traditional “sleep” mode that has always, as far as I can remember, been induced by this action. I am planning to purchase a new MacBook myself in the next couple of months so his problem is going to be, unless it is an isolated one, mine as well and I am not happy about it.

After looking through the Apple forums for some sort of an idea as to what could be happening I am increasingly coming to the disappointing conclusion that this may simply be how one can expect Apple’s new consumer portable to act when one closes the lid.

I have always considered the fact that an Apple laptop owner has traditionally needed to do nothing but close the lid on his machine to be on his way, to be one of the key user experience features that has differentiated the Apple laptop ownership experience from that of the typical PC laptop. Not the case any longer. It’s a damn shame. I consider this change in behavior to be a bug and a mistake on Apple’s part. Apple laptops prior to the MacBooks (and MacBook Pros?) could be counted on, after having their lids closed, to enter a state of “sleep” sufficient to leave the battery effectively untouched after, in my experience, very long periods of time. I have left my iBook in this state for over a week with no noticeable loss of battery power.

The “solution” to this problem, it seems, is, shockingly, not a native Apple fix but one of the third-party variety.

It is great that there is a “solution” to this problem but, honestly, this sort of undocumented change in behavior is a rude surprise especially to owners of earlier Apple laptops. Unless otherwise specifically stated there is no reason I should expect any significant behavioral change from Apple laptop to Apple laptop for any given action. I am disappointed that this appears to be feature change and is the first disappointment I have personally experienced related(?) to the Intel switch.

My brother will be bringing his laptop to our local Apple Store to get it checked out. Wish us luck.