David Hanak On September 12, 2017, a keynote was held where Apple introduced the iPhone X, iPhone 8 and Apple Watch Series 3. However, in addition to these products, a product called AirPower was mentioned on the huge screen behind Tim Cook. It was supposed to be the perfect wireless charging pad that would be able to charge multiple devices at once – including the “upcoming” AirPods with a wireless charging case. This week, a year has passed since the event described above, and there is no mention of either AirPower or the new AirPods.
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Patrik Siwek Many people expected Apple to address AirPower at last week's "Gather Round" conference, or at least release some new information. Leaks shortly before the presentation indicated that we would not see any of the above-mentioned products, and so it happened. In the case of the second generation of AirPods and the upgraded box with support for wireless charging, the AirPower charging pad is reportedly waiting for it to be ready. However, we don't have to wait for that.
Information about what is behind such an unusual delay began to appear on the web. After all, it is somewhat unusual for Apple to announce a new product that is still not available after more than a year. And there is no indication that anything should change in this situation. Foreign sources dealing with the AirPower issue mention several reasons why we are still waiting. As it seems, Apple introduced something last year that was far from finished - in fact, on the contrary.
The development is said to be facing several critical issues that are very difficult to overcome. First of all, it is excessive heating and problems with heat dissipation. The prototypes were said to get very hot during use, which led to a decrease in charging efficiency and other problems, especially to the malfunctioning of internal components, which should run a modified and greatly trimmed version of iOS.
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Dan Pražák Another major roadblock to successful completion is alleged communication issues between the pad and the individual devices being charged on it. There are communication errors between the charger, the iPhone, and the Apple Watch with AirPods, which the iPhone is checking to charge. The last major problem is the high amount of interference caused by the design of the charging pad, which combines two separate charging circuits. They kind of fight with each other and the result is on the one hand inefficient use of the maximum charging capacity and an increased level of heating (see problem number 1). In addition, the entire internal mechanism of the pad is very complicated to manufacture so that these interferences do not occur, which significantly slows down the entire development process.
From the above, it is clear that the development of AirPower is definitely not simple, and when Apple presented the pad last year, there was definitely no fully functional prototype. The company still has three months to bring the pad to market (it's slated for release this year). Apple seems to have messed up a bit with AirPower. We will see if we will see it or if it will end up in the abyss of history as a forgotten and unrealized project.
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Source: Macrumors, Sonny Dickson
