Apple cancelled its planned AirPower accessory four years ago this week, but a similar solution is said to remain on the company's long-term roadmap.
Announced at the iPhone X event in 2017, AirPower was a wireless charging mat designed to charge an iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods case simultaneously, regardless of each device's position on the mat. Apple said the accessory would be available in 2018, but it never launched and was ultimately cancelled in a rare move by Apple.
"After much effort, we've concluded AirPower will not achieve our high standards and we have cancelled the project," said Apple's former hardware engineering chief Dan Riccio, in a statement shared on March 29, 2019. "We continue to believe that the future is wireless and are committed to push the wireless experience forward."
Apple never provided a specific reason for the cancellation, but it is believed that the overlapping charging coils inside the AirPower led to overheating.
In his newsletter last October, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said he still believes that an AirPower-like accessory will "eventually come to fruition," but it might be years away. In the meantime, the only multi-device charging mat sold by Apple is the MagSafe Duo Charger, which only works with two devices at once and has fixed charging positioning.
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And with Apple adding magnets to the Qi standard, it really kills the whole random placement charging concept, as each device is effectively self-aligned with the charging coils.
What I think remains strange for Apple to be doing is pushing wireless charging in the first place. It is far less efficient than a wired connection and that loss of energy is costing us (and the environment) money for almost zero benefit. It’s also not saving us time, as wired connections can offer much faster charging speeds. Imagine forgetting to charge your iPhone and in the morning having 8% battery left. You plug it into your fast charger and in 20 minutes (while you shower and get ready for work/school) your iPhone is fully charged. To me, that would be far more convenient than having to remember to set your iPhone onto the magnetic charging puck.
It was cancelled 4 years ago. Why are we still talking about it? Because Gurman thinks it's still years away?
If it hasn't shipped by now and we're still hearing it might ship 10 years after it was announced, it's because some engineer somewhere in the bowels of Apple Park refuses to let go of his dreams...
"I work for Apple and a lot of us think the visor is a waste of time and we should really put that energy into finishing Air Power-- we're only one or two prototypes from getting it right, I'm sure of it." ?