Whether it does only for me or for everyone is a still open question, but on my N9 device I tried this 2 times with the same result:
- Without applet enabled I always have idle power consumption around 4-6mA
- Top consumers vary, among longest running processes in conky I see pulseaudio, dbus-daemon, lpsmagic and smartsearch

- After I enable applet (with installation) my idle power consumption rises to 8-10mA
- The top consumer is always "Device idle"
- The longest running process is always "mapplicationext"
- I did this 2 times, 1st time I used applet for a 2 weeks at least with usual charges, reboots etc., 2nd time I let it live for a week (3 charges and 1 reboot at least)
- After I uninstalling applet everything returns to normal values for my phone.

I don't know how to connect this "mapplicationext" rise to your applet and how to understand what is going on. If you know any tools for monitoring such kind of things - please advice, I will run it on my phone and provide you with info. If you have some activity logging in your applet - I may turn it on and send you logs etc.