Apple Still Developing AirPower-Like Charger, Also Exploring Long-Range Wireless Charging
Apple is continuing to work on a future wireless charger that would function similarly to the now-abandoned AirPower, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
In a report outlining Apple's wireless charging ambitions, Gurman says that Apple is "still exploring" a wireless charger that would charge multiple devices like an iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods all at once.
Apple first announced the AirPower in September 2017 alongside the iPhone 8, 8 Plus, and iPhone X, and said that the charging product would launch sometime in 2018. No AirPower materialized in 2018 and after months of rumors of development issues, Apple canceled the project in March 2019.
The AirPower failed because Apple engineers were unable to solve multiple bugs affecting the device, including interference problems and issues with overheating. In 2020 alongside the iPhone 12, Apple instead unveiled MagSafe, a magnetic wireless charging alternative.
Since the AirPower was canceled, there have been persistent rumors that Apple is still working on some kind of charging mat, but most have been nebulous. Gurman's report is the clearest hint we've had yet that some kind of AirPower-like device could still come out in the future.
In addition to a wireless charger that's similar to the AirPower, Apple is also said to be "internally investigating" alternative wireless charging methods that can work over greater distances. Work on long range charging is in the early stages, though, and it's likely to be several years before we see any kind of new long-range wireless charging technology from Apple.
Popular Stories
Apple today released several open source large language models (LLMs) that are designed to run on-device rather than through cloud servers. Called OpenELM (Open-source Efficient Language Models), the LLMs are available on the Hugging Face Hub, a community for sharing AI code. As outlined in a white paper [PDF], there are eight total OpenELM models, four of which were pre-trained using the...
Apple is set to unveil iOS 18 during its WWDC keynote on June 10, so the software update is a little over six weeks away from being announced. Below, we recap rumored features and changes planned for the iPhone with iOS 18. iOS 18 will reportedly be the "biggest" update in the iPhone's history, with new ChatGPT-inspired generative AI features, a more customizable Home Screen, and much more....
Apple has announced it will be holding a special event on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time (10 a.m. Eastern Time), with a live stream to be available on Apple.com and on YouTube as usual. The event invitation has a tagline of "Let Loose" and shows an artistic render of an Apple Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more ...
Apple has dropped the number of Vision Pro units that it plans to ship in 2024, going from an expected 700 to 800k units to just 400k to 450k units, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Orders have been scaled back before the Vision Pro has launched in markets outside of the United States, which Kuo says is a sign that demand in the U.S. has "fallen sharply beyond expectations." As a...
Apple is finally planning a Calculator app for the iPad, over 14 years after launching the device, according to a source familiar with the matter. iPadOS 18 will include a built-in Calculator app for all iPad models that are compatible with the software update, which is expected to be unveiled during the opening keynote of Apple's annual developers conference WWDC on June 10. AppleInsider...
Best Buy is discounting a collection of M3 MacBook Pro computers today, this time focusing on the 14-inch version of the laptop. Every deal in this sale requires you to have a My Best Buy Plus or Total membership, although non-members can still get solid second-best prices on these MacBook Pro models. Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Best Buy. When you click a link and make a...
Top Rated Comments
Anyway, based on my current struggles I think that’s what Apple is doing, rather than what would be logical for them to be doing and that the insider is telling us they are doing.
currently my anker 4 port 100W usb-c charger is a bit dumb. if i connect 2 usb-c devices, anker just delivers 50w to each device max. it's a bit stupid when you connect a MacBook Pro that wants 87W and an Apple Watch that only needs 5W max.
that’ll teach Apple to hype and announce before they even finalized a design:D