Apple: iPad charging fine, keep it plugged in

Apple says its latest iPad model has been designed to keep charging, even after its indicator says it's reached 100 percent.

Following questions about the accuracy of the new iPad's battery status indicator and its recharging technology, Apple now says that it's part of its software to continue charging and discharging the battery when it nears 100 percent, and that there's no harm in leaving it plugged in.

"That circuitry is designed so you can keep your device plugged in as long as you would like," Apple VP Michael Tchao told AllThingsD today. "It's a great feature that's always been in iOS."

Last week a report from research firm DisplayMate made waves for saying that Apple's latest iPad was not fully charged when it showed a 100 percent reading on its indicator, adding that Apple's math for calculating that charge was off. More recently, a CNBC news report relayed a message from Apple suggesting that this process could actually damage the longevity of the battery.

Apple's latest iPad has a battery with considerably higher capacity than its predecessors, jumping from a 25-watt-hour lithium-ion battery to a 42.5-watt-hour battery. That change came in order to power a display with four times the number of pixels as previous generations, a dual-core processor with a quad-core graphics chip, and 4G LTE wireless networking on some models.

Apple rates its latest iPad at 10 hours over Wi-Fi, and 9 hours for models with 4G LTE wireless networking. In CNET's own testing, we found it to be very nearly the same to that of the iPad 2, and were able to push the tablet to nearly 13 hours when viewing a movie with airplane mode enabled.

Updated at 3:35 p.m. PT to note that the longevity claims came from CNBC, and once again at 10:30 p.m. to note differences between capacity and overall power.