Apple's AirPower Wireless Charging Mat Is In Production (theverge.com) 107
Apple's long-delayed AirPower wireless charging mat might finally be in production. According to a tweet from ChargerLAB, a "credible source" says that Apple has begun manufacturing the long-delayed wireless charging mat. The Verge reports: If true, it could mean that the long-overdue product could finally reach the hands of consumers before too much longer. Apple announced in September 2017, that it was introducing wireless charging capabilities in with the iPhone 8 and iPhone X, and gave a preview for its own wireless charging mat that would not only charge the iPhone, but its Apple Watch and AirPods. At the time, Apple didn't announce a price -- only that it was expected to be released sometime in 2018. That obviously didn't happen...
If what ChargerLAB says is accurate, that could mean that we'll see more about them in the near future. The site's tweet says that the devices are being manufactured at Luxshare Precision, which already manufactures Apple's AirPods and some cords. MacRumors translated a screenshot of ChargerLAB's WeChat conversation, in which the site's source expects the device be released soon. But given the charger's history of delays and technical challenges, it's probably best not to get one's hopes up just yet.
If what ChargerLAB says is accurate, that could mean that we'll see more about them in the near future. The site's tweet says that the devices are being manufactured at Luxshare Precision, which already manufactures Apple's AirPods and some cords. MacRumors translated a screenshot of ChargerLAB's WeChat conversation, in which the site's source expects the device be released soon. But given the charger's history of delays and technical challenges, it's probably best not to get one's hopes up just yet.
Wasted power via inefficiency on top of existing.. (Score:3, Funny)
Shiny whizbang marketing gimmick-convenience has no price, sell your mother's eyes for new improved magic beans.
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Nobody "forced" Jack to buy magic beans either, per the analogy, dipshit.
Also the beans really were magic, so it wasn't just "marketing", and he got all the giant's gold, so the beans were a good deal.
Fee-fi-fo-fum, the bean analogy is really dumb.
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How the fuck was Jack going to MOVE the GIANT gold from the castle in the sky, genius?
He could use gravity. Gold is heavy, so gravity will move it downward.
And NOBODY told him they'd grow into a beanstalk leading to gold
But he was told they were magic, and they were.
Further you're overlooking the possibility the whole thing was a drunk's dream
Why would someone just make up a story? Occam's Razor says the magic beans were real, since that is the simplest explanation.
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How the fuck was Jack going to MOVE the GIANT gold from the castle in the sky, genius?
Yeah, you'd have to be some kind of Einstein to figure out how to use mass-energy-induced space-time curvature to accelerate heavy objects along a geodesic from the sky to the ground.
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How the fuck was Jack going to MOVE the GIANT gold from the castle in the sky, genius?
Who said anything about moving it? - Goldfinger...
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Shiny whizbang marketing gimmick-convenience has no price, sell your mother's eyes for new improved magic beans.
Also late to the market... Every Android phone I've owned for the last 5 years has had wireless charging... using a standard that didn't tie me to a single vendor.
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Are you upset because the Apple device may or may not work with non-Apple devices, is that it? I'm trying to understand the issue here. Another competing product usually makes everyone else tighten their stuff, resulting in better offerings for customers. Leapfrogging is great.
/. ed strikes again. (Score:5, Insightful)
Letâ(TM)s all post in Unicode! (Score:3)
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Who needs unicode? ASCII is safer...
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Let's be fair now, iTunes was never tolerable.
Unimpressed with wireless charging (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a wireless charging mat for my Android phone. It has a few problems. One, the charging is a lot slower than by wire because the efficiency is so poor. Two, the phone has to be placed just right on the pad to consistently charge. A few degrees or centimeters from the ideal position, and the phone charges for a minute or so, then stops, then resumes, over and over again. This slows down the charge, and it probably isn't great for the battery to switch constantly between charging and discharging.
I had a thought to build the charging mat into a kind of stand for the phone that would hold both in the ideal position to charge, but I quickly realized that what I had invented was a charging cradle, and if it just hooked a wire into the charging port on the phone instead of incorporating the mat, it would do everything the wireless mat is doing, but faster and with better energy efficiency.
Maybe Apple's is better, but my experience is that there's not that much point to wireless charging. These days, I just plug my phone in.
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These are execution problems and surely could be improved upon. Just like fingerprint sensors and face recognition systems are old and totally sucked often enough.
(Although I personally agree that even in the best case this is just a tiny bit of convenience and surely nothing you would really need.)
Re:Unimpressed with wireless charging (Score:5, Funny)
You obviously don’t get it.
Wireless charging means Ive can finally get rid of those ugly ports which detract from the phone’s beautiful smooth lines. And because you don’t have to plug in those ugly cables, wireless charging also means easier charging. Easier charging means we can have smaller batteries because it’s so easy you won’t mind charging frequently - several times a day! And smaller batteries means even thinner phones, because the current phones are just too fat! Plus frequent charging means customers will buy large quantities of three hundred dollar charging mats so they can have one at home, one at work, one at the gym, and one in their bag!
It’s a win-win-win-win! For Apple!
You forget... (Score:2)
No ports = they control how the thing is charged = what can charge it.
So you either pay Apple for the charging accessory, or end up paying Apple for another accessory (that third party accessory maker has to pay an Apple license, which they pass on to you...)
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The current iPhones are the thickest since the iPhone 4s. They have gotten thicker ever since the iPhone 6, which was and still is the thinnest iPhone ever. Apple has long given up on that and in fact especially the iPhone XR is positively a brick.
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I'm not. This thing is so huge, thick and heavy (it weights two thirds of an iPad mini, 200/300g) that I didn't want to carry it in my pocket every day. So I bought a fucking iPhone 7 a few days ago instead to replace my disintegrating iPhone 6. Well.
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Wouldn't this actually have exactly the opposite effect? If you charge your phone more often and only partly before the battery is completely empty this is actually much better for the battery. Running it dry every day and charging it completely to 100% over night is the worst case for the lifetime of your battery.
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OTOH, there are USB ports and cables (which are also easier to carry) almost everywhere.
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You jest [successfully] but removing every port and not providing a battery door, and moving to all soft buttons, would actually provide some measurable benefit. The only question is how to handle physical reset — perhaps a pair of MEMS reed switches, one at each end of the device, and in opposed orientation?
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Apple has a history of taking features that are in the "somewhat functional" stage,
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one or more devices just plonked down on the pad, all charging. If placement isn't critical and you can charge multiple devices
To me that is the only possible angle of interest on the charging mat, the ability to place things anywhere on it and they will charge..
But I still don't know if I would get one, even though I have both an Apple Watch and iPhone but I really like using my watch on it's side in Nightstand mode. Maybe just to have a place I could throw some casually on a table if I felt like it neede
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You can get better charging mats.
Alignment can be by one of two methods. The device can be aligned somehow, e.g. the shape of the charger guides it in, or magnets pull it into place. Alternatively the charger can align itself to the device, with a moving coil or by having multiple coils and selecting the right one. I have a Panasonic one that moves when you drop the phone onto it.
Charge speed is low not because of efficiency but because early chargers, like the older USB ones, don't support the high current
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Mine is a Samsung that they say does 5W, so I guess it's in the middle of the range you describe. There's a newer model available that actually has kind of a cradle and does 7.5W. But, meh. For unrelated reasons, I think my phone is getting close to dying, so I'll just keep plugging it in until I figure out what I'm going to replace it with.
BTW, the manual for my mat says something about using the 'position guide' on the wireless charging back for the phone to place it on the mat correctly. I bought the cha
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I'd actually prefer a 1.5 cm thick phone that would last me 2-3 days on battery. But it seems the vast majority of the population are form-over-function people, so I have to suffer with too-thin phones with insufficient battery life.
My Nokia 8110 4G is just under 1.5 cm thick and lasts me about 2 weeks on battery. It doesn't count as a "smart"phone but there's a workable web browser and Google maps with GPS. I mainly chose this model for its WLAN hotspot capabilities, as I prefer to keep the smarts on a computer I can control.
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Maybe you just got a bad and cheaply designed charger? I have come across charging stands which behave as you describe, but also ones which work well regardless of position and orientation of the phone. Now, I am talking about a stand (not a mat), so a less possible orientations and positions, but even with stands design there are good ones and poor ones.
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I'm in the opposite camp. I love my charging mat and stand! So much easier than plugging in a cable every time. Just set it down, shift it a few cm until I feel the vibration indicating it's charging, and I'm done. Any time I want to use the phone, just grab it. No cable to get tangled, no need to unplug and replug.
I still use the cable when I need a fast charge, but generally the mat on my office desk keeps it topped up all day, and the stand can slow-charge overnight at home. Since my last two phones had
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I had this problem and it was related to the thickness/material of the case. Don't know if that makes a difference in your case but the symptoms were the same - changed the case and the charger is pretty much happy with me throwing the phone on it at most angles.
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How much power will this waste? (Score:1)
Multiplied by the amount of units they'll unload: how many additional nuclear power plants will be needed just to compensate for the apple users that are too lazy to plug in a cable to charge their device?
19th Century technology (Score:1)
Congratulations, Apple, on both:
- implementing 19th Century technology - albeit late and...
- making a big hoopla and getting consumers excited about it
Geezus, it's a frickin' coil of wire! How hard can this be?
I think the concerns about efficiency are overblown, though. Transformers (and this is basically a transformer, formed between the "charger" and a coil in the charged device) can be as high as 98%.
Re: 19th Century technology (Score:1)
But they are not available? So how would you know what they are like? Specs?
The problem with wireless charging is... (Score:1)
The problem with wireless charging is that it is not wireless charging, It is inductive charging. It requires you to still go to the location of the charger and place the phone on the charger.
If one must go through the trouble to walk over to their inductive charging pad, set the phone down, is there really any advantage to talking the couple seconds longer to plug it into a cable to charge, which will charger faster and more efficiently?
The only reason apple wants this is because it will allow them to elim
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"The only reason apple wants this is because it will allow them to eliminate the last port on their phone and will give users no choice but to use things like air pods."
Plugging the analog hole is a logical motive. Vendor lock is love.
The reputation lives on (Score:2)
The product may now ship but the reputation damage is permanent. Right up there with the white I-phone. [wsj.com]
And in other Apple Inc. news... (Score:2, Informative)
...Apple CEO, Tim Cook, had a bowel movement. He reported the consistency was firm but it was relatively easy to pass. He commented that he's looking forward to the next one tomorrow because he's been eating more fibre. IT Fecal Review Weekly has calculated that, based on previous performance, Tim Cook may have already reached peak fibre intake and that future bowel movements are unlikely to improve. Shareholders are concerned that this may negatively affect Cook's mood and lead to poorer performance of App
Yawn (Score:3)
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I bet it's like 20 to 25 percent of one.
Goodbye Connectors! (Score:5, Insightful)
Finally, the last connector port can be elimited from the design.
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Waiting to see the hacky as shit battery driven 3rd party wireless charging cases on Amazon starting fires in people's pants because they wanted a battery case and this was their only option anymore.
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Most likely will be overpriced (Score:1)
Not only will it not do much more then what's already out there. It will most likely be priced as yet another money maker for Apple. I am sure the flock will somehow convince themselves that it must be better, and worthy of the Apple tax.
More courage on the part of Apple (Score:2)