Apple cancels AirPower development

[ElliotHand]

Apple abandons AirPower wireless charging product https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-47756055

 

[Throrik]

I'm at least glad they cancelled instead of putting out a sub-par product. I know people complain about other products having engineering issues, but I have never witnessed them personally. This seemed to be a bottleneck of physics more than anything. Gutted though as it was a fantastic sounding product.

 

[ElliotHand]

I wasn't very close to this, what functionality was it supposed to offer over and above a QI charger? Seems a bit of an odd choice to have many of their products compatible with wireless charging but then decide that it's impossible to create a product to allow that to happen (particularly as Samsung etc do).

 

[glenimp617]

oops

 

[JamesM]

I wasn't very close to this, what functionality was it supposed to offer over and above a QI charger? Seems a bit of an odd choice to have many of their products compatible with wireless charging but then decide that it's impossible to create a product to allow that to happen (particularly as Samsung etc do).

My understanding is that you could place any device on any part of the mat and it would begin charging.

You wouldn't have to put a device in the 'exact' spot in order for it to charge. Plus there's the whole iOS integration, etc

 

[Combat squirrel]

I wasn't very close to this, what functionality was it supposed to offer over and above a QI charger? Seems a bit of an odd choice to have many of their products compatible with wireless charging but then decide that it's impossible to create a product to allow that to happen (particularly as Samsung etc do).

My understanding is that you could place any device on any part of the mat and it would begin charging.

You wouldn't have to put a device in the 'exact' spot in order for it to charge. Plus there's the whole iOS integration, etc

Yes this - other chargers are small and have one charge coil - and the placement must be fairly exact.

Apple tried to get around this and take it to the next level by having a mat full of small charge coils allowing x-y movement of any device anywhere on the mat but to compensate for off axis placement between 2 coils and have it work on something like an Apple Watch is tricky, also with so many coils your going to get heating - a lot of heating as you try to deliver the same amps through a smaller coil - made worse if the placement isn't amazing and you have to light up 2/3 coils to get a charge fed.

I think apple thought they could get around this by having a relatively smart charge mat with an A series chip managing power and such, as well as comms with devices placed on it, can't compensate for physics though.

It's difficult, a shame they didn't crack it.

 

[MrRockliffe]

I wasn't very close to this, what functionality was it supposed to offer over and above a QI charger? Seems a bit of an odd choice to have many of their products compatible with wireless charging but then decide that it's impossible to create a product to allow that to happen (particularly as Samsung etc do).

This was supposed to me a multi coil design - north of 20 if reports are to believed. This allows you to place it virtually anywhere to charge, rather than finding the right "spot".

In addition to this, there would be iOS integration, similar to the Pixel Stand from Google, allowing you to check the charge of your iPhone, Apple Watch and Airpods all from the iPhone, for example.

The problem with a multi coil design is that wireless charging produces a fair amount of heat due to how inefficient it is, and that's just with 1 or 2 coils. Imagine having 20+

Apple's design team were convinced they could circumvent this, but clearly they've been unsuccessful in doing so, hence the cancellation

 

[Destination]

Indeed, in short, apple tried to innovate, and realised they couldn't.

 

[Feek]

Yup. As Jesse would say “Science, bitch”

 

[Terminal_Boy]

Would never have passed EMC/Spurious Emission tests either if what I heard last year was accurate.