Topic: Wireless charging
Apple Supplier Wistron Appears to Confirm Wireless Charging in Next iPhone (Jun 15, 2017)
This is exactly the kind of speaking out of turn that Apple suppliers absolutely know not to engage in, so it’s baffling that Wistron’s CEO would have been so careless. Wistron, of course, is the vendor Apple is using for its first foray into manufacturing in India, and this is the kind of thing that tends to jeopardize those relationships. It’s not a huge revelation – Apple joined the consortium that manages the Qi wireless charging standard which it already uses in the Apple Watch a while back. But it’s one of a number of new hardware features that are likely to make it into the next iPhones – certainly not the headline feature, but one of a checklist of features that will be used to drum up demand. On the other hand, I remain skeptical of the value of mat-based wireless charging – though there’s some appeal to just putting your phone down to have it charge, that really requires several chargers in different places around your home and/or office to be useful, and it’s actually more limiting than traditional plugged-in charging for things like making phone calls or typing on your phone, where you might want to hold it while it’s charging. I’m still most curious to see whether Apple has made any advances in this regard and how it will both approach and sell wireless charging as a feature.
via The Verge
Apple joins Wireless Power Consortium, fueling iPhone 8 rumors – Business Insider (Feb 13, 2017)
Apple does, of course, have two products that use wireless charging today: the Apple Watch and AirPods, both of which charge exclusively without a conventional cable plug. However, neither of those products officially uses the Qi standard managed by the WPC, and of course iPhones don’t do wireless charging at all today. Given that wireless charging has been a staple of iPhone rumors for some time now, this certainly lends plausibility, but it’s also disappointing if this is the flavor of wireless charging Apple is going to implement. I’ve never been a fan of mat-based wireless charging, mostly because it’s actually less flexible than cable-based charging – you have to leave your device on the flat surface, which means no taking phone calls, no two-handed typing, no taking pictures, and so on. I’ve always felt that wireless charging over distance was a far more interesting and useful technology because it could eliminate the need to put a device in any particular spot to charge entirely, which would be particularly good for wearables. There have been rumors about Apple working with Energous, which makes that kind of technology, for some time too, but this WPC membership makes it look as though Apple is going a more traditional route.
via Business Insider
Energous still isn’t delivering truly wireless charging, but says it’s coming later this year – The Verge (Jan 4, 2017)
Energous and its version of wireless charging has always been far more interesting to me than the standard, mat-based version, because the latter is actually less flexible in some ways than cable-based charging. Charging over distance is the real innovation here, but no-one has cracked and released it yet in a mass market product. The big question about Energous specifically is whether Apple is or isn’t the mysterious partner it frequently refers to – if Apple puts this technology in products and it works well, that will be game changing for a whole range of products from iPhones to Watches. But if it isn’t, Energous appears to be stalling indefinitely on technology that never seems quite ready.