Dan Pražák The arrival of the new year means one major unfulfilled promise for Apple. As early as September 2017, Phil Schiller promised on the stage of the Steve Jobs Theater that Apple would launch the newly introduced AirPower charger within the following year. But 2018 is officially behind us and the revolutionary wireless charger with the bitten apple logo is nowhere to be seen.
It was supposed to be minimalistic and at the same time powerful and revolutionary. At least that's how Apple presented its wireless charger. But it seems that in the case of AirPower, the engineers from the Californian giant took too big a bite. The pad was supposed to be able to charge up to three devices at the same time, including the Apple Watch and AirPods with the new case, which has yet to hit the counters of retailers. In addition, with AirPower, it shouldn't matter where you place the individual devices - in short, charging would work everywhere and at maximum performance. But it was here that Apple ran into production problems.
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As we were a few months ago informed, When developing AirPower, Apple failed to find a way to prevent overheating, which subsequently reduces the effectiveness of wireless charging. But the problem is not only the extreme heating of the pad as such, but also of the devices being charged. The internal design of the charger is based on a combination of several overlapping coils, and this is precisely what is a stumbling block for Apple. So it either needs to deal with overheating, which will make it offer revolutionary features, or reduce the number of coils and AirPower will become just a regular wireless charger like any other, except that we've been waiting for it for over a year.
Hope dies last
The failure to meet the promised deadline and the silence after the footpath seems like a huge failure from a marketing point of view, but it does not necessarily mean that the AirPower project has been terminated. Apple still has its charger mentions in the instructions included with the new iPhone XS and XR, and a slight mention is also found directly on the official Site company, even though almost everything related to the pad disappeared from there after last year's September keynote.
Not long ago, even Apple he left also register new functions that are directly related to the wireless charger. Later even was looking for reinforcement to its team that would participate directly in the development of wireless technologies, including AirPower. Mentions of support can also be found at page summarizing the technical specifications of the Apple Watch Series 3. But that ends the list of references from Apple.
Not even renowned Apple analysts leave the subject of the wireless charger idle. Ming-Chi Kuo let it be known in October of last year that Apple should introduce AirPower either by the end of the year or in the first quarter of 2019, which would mean by the end of March. Acclaimed developer Steve Troughton-Smith stated on Twitter a few days ago that Apple has already dealt with the production problems and should introduce the pad soon.
Where is AirPower? ?♂️ All I've been hearing is 'they've finally fixed it', so, if true, it could ship as a product whenever Apple wants. hopefully alongside the smart battery case for the XS?
- Steve Troughton-Smith (@stroughtonsmith) December 31, 2018
At the moment, all we have to do is wait. However, questions do not only hang over the availability, but also over the price, which Apple has not revealed yet. For example, Alza.cz already has AirPower listed and although the price is not directly stated for the item, it can be read in the page code that the largest domestic e-shop has prepared a price tag of CZK 6 for the product. And that's certainly not enough.
Street: Macrumors
It's already a pretty embarrassing situation and I'm surprised that Apple hasn't been sued for this fraud yet - they implemented technology in the phones that can't be used, which unnecessarily increased the price of the phone.
It's like an iP with wireless charging, can't it be charged wirelessly?