I have no idea, but lol@"Apple-wan kenobi".

I always use mine plugged in.

I'm on my ipad for hours every day. I plug it in at night and unplug it in the a.m. The only issue I have is when the charge gets down to about 20%. That affects functionality if it's being used for streaming. I use it to watch live TV off our cable box.

So with my heavy usage, mine needs to be charged nightly. With less usage I can go every other night.

iPhone 5 usually gets charged overnight, every night. I used it a lot, and have Location Services running (which definitely drains), so I do leave it on the charger at times during the day.

Make sure to shut down apps that you no longer need before you start streaming. I find that this helps a lot on the iPad.

I was told to let it go to zero every other week or so.

Not sure about Macbook, but hubby recently got an update for his iPad that greatly extended the battery life. He raved about it for days...

My MacBook Pro is 8 years old. It stays plugged in most of the time. About once a month or so I let the battery drain down to 0 before recharging.

I think that the need to drain down to zero has been obviated by new battery technology. And, in fact, it is preferable not to fully discharge your batteries.

to wit:

Similar to a mechanical device that wears out faster with heavy use, so also does the depth of discharge (DoD) determine the cycle count. The shorter the discharge (low DoD), the longer the battery will last. If at all possible, avoid full discharges and charge the battery more often between uses. Partial discharge on Li-ion is fine. There is no memory and the battery does not need periodic full discharge cycles to prolong life.

Do note this last bit below, which may confuse the issue.

Perform Shallow Discharges; Avoid Frequent Full Discharges

Old NiMH and NiCd batteries had a “memory effect” and had to be completely discharged from 100% to 0% to keep their capacity. Modern devices use Lithium Ion batteries, which work differently and have no memory effect. In fact, completely discharging a Li-ion battery is bad for it. You should try to perform shallow discharges — discharge the battery to something like 40-70% before recharging it, for example. Try to never let your battery go below 20% except in rare circumstances.

If you were to discharge your battery to 50%, recharge it, and then discharge it to 50% again, that would count as a single “cycle” with modern Li-ion batteries. You don’t need to worry about performing shallow charges.

There’s only one problem that shallow discharges can cause. Laptops can get a bit confused by shallow discharges and may show you wrong estimates for how long your device’s battery will last. Laptop manufacturers recommend you perform a full discharge about once per month to help calibrate the device’s battery time estimate.

Nothing that comes on at any regular time nor any regular streaming schedule. It's just something I've observed and might well be particular to my large ipad which is one of the older models.

Alternately, it could have been the cable comp router. Switched over to the Apple air port recently. Will see if it has the same issue next time it gets low. Usually that's if I forget to charge it overnight and it runs a second day.

But between streaming and WWF these get heavy use. I sometimes wonder how long it will be before the thing just gives out somehow and needs to be replaced. Must say I feel it's worth every penny.

I sometimes wonder how long it will be before the thing just gives out somehow and needs to be replaced.

I got one of the very first ipads (within a month of the first release) which I later passed on to a friend. It's still working just fine, so I would say the prospects are good.

We rarely let our Apple products run down - they get charged every night.

glad to hear that writersblock. Fingers crossed.

I read somewhere that the newer Apple devices, maybe it is the newer 6-series phones, stop charging when 100% charge is reached. I have the 6s and think I read it when I got my new phone. I am guessing the newest ipads and maybe some of the computers have this built-in feature also but I have not confirmed this.

Thank you to all who responded - I just wish the Genius Bar gurus in the store were on the same page. It seemed like such a simple question and I honestly thought they would have the best answer - certainly not conflicting answers.

As for the Apple-wan kenobi comment - is it just me or do any of you feel like you're walking into a cult of blue shirt worshippers when you enter the store? Business Insider had a description of what is like to work there and the training sessions almost reminded me of .Scientology.

http://www.businessinsider.com/what-its-really-like-to-work-at-an-apple-store-2015-7