“The AirPower may be dead, but Apple hasn’t given up on making its own charging systems,” Dennis Sellers reports for Apple World Today. “The company has been granted a patent (number 20190203751) for ‘smart charging systems for portable electronic devices’ such as iPhones, iPads, Apple Watches, and Mac laptops.”
Sellers reports, “Here’s Apple’s summary of the patent: ‘Embodiments describe a charging component for an electronic device that includes an interface surface comprising a portion of an external surface of a housing of the electronic device; a plurality of contacts positioned at the interface surface and exposed for making contact with contacts of a connector; one or more sensors for detecting a separation event; an inductor coil positioned proximate to the interface surface, wherein a central axis of the inductor coil is perpendicular to at least a portion of the interface surface; and a processor coupled to the inductor coil and the one or more sensors, wherein the processor is configured to change an operation of the inductor coil based at least in part on a measurement from the one or more sensors.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: “Coming next year.” (wink, wink)
SEE ALSO:
Apple’s AirPower: a fiasco beyond imagination – April 1, 2019
Apple officially pulls the plug on AirPower – March 29, 2019
Apple’s AirPower to launch late this month, supply chain sources say – March 22, 2019
Apple secures rights to AirPower trademark – March 21, 2019
New AirPower image alongside iPhone XS appears within Apple’s website code – March 21, 2019
Will we see Apple announce AirPower, new iPod touch before week’s end? – March 20, 2019
Apple has approved production of AirPower wireless-charging mat – March 20, 2019
Apple’s iOS 12.2 beta 6 includes AirPower support – March 20, 2019
Tim Cook’s Apple vs. Steve Jobs’ Apple – February 28, 2019
Apple unveils AirPower charging mat to simultaneously charge your iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods; coming ‘next year’ – September 12, 2017
Apple’s desperate Mac Pro damage control message hints at a confused, divided company – April 6, 2017
What Steve Jobs gave Apple that Tim Cook cannot – November 18, 2015
The culture at Apple changed when Tim Cook took over as CEO – April 10, 2017
Lazy Apple. It’s not hard to imagine Steve Jobs asking, ‘What have you been doing for the last four years?’ – December 9, 2016
Open letter to Tim Cook: Apple needs to do better – January 5, 2015
late April Fool’s joke.
To state the obvious: this is just a patent application, not a product announcement. If the patent is granted, it does not insure, promise, or even suggest that Apple will ever ship a product using the patent.
It does insure that nobody else can ship an infringing product. If you don’t think that is a valuable thing for the company, I doubt that Apple’s Board will be seeking you out as the next CEO.
The patent was granted. The application happened some time ago. certainly before the public cancelation of the AirPower. Yes, companies do have to try to patent everything they can, even if they never intend to use them offensively. (btw it’s ensure, not insure.)
Hm, looks like Apple finally found a good enough excuse to jack up the price.
This is the new Apple. It will never happen.
…use this a lesson why they should never tell anyone anything. There was all the screaming and whining about how Apple was too secretive and needed to be more open with people. All that gets having the same screamers and whiners castigating Apple when they announce that that a project is canceled. I remember reading that they have a huge storage room filled with cancelled projects that only they know existed.
In this particular case, Apple admitted that a project isn’t working out and canceled it. Fine – it was a stumble and looks dumb but at least they admitted it moved on. Releasing poorly thought out bad tech is Samsung’s specialty.
($2000 fat folding fone with big middle crease anyone?)
Other than MDN and a small group of pundits obsessing on it, my reaction was “So what”. IMHO wireless charging as it is currently formulated is a technology in search of a solution.
The problem is that Apple mentioned that they were working on it and MIGHT have a release YEAR.
If I were Apple I would take a lesson from this. Screw the attempt at being more forthcoming. There are no rewards – just backbiting overblown criticism. If I were Tim Cook, the memo would have gone out an hour after the press release canceling wireless charging that no one tells anyone anything until a product is ready to be released, and even then only announcing at an official Press conference (“… oh, by the way, one more thing…”.
If I were Apple, that’s what I would do.
Mentioning Samsung as an example just brings expectations of Apple down to their level. People have been conditioned by Apple to think more highly of them.
Simple. Tim Cook is admitting and feeling guilty inside about the clogging pipeline criticism. He is also feeling pressured at the same time to show that things are being worked on but ended up in premature ejac….
Can someone explain why “Airpower is Dead” is a repeated headline that I see ? (as if it’s some important event) . . . My understanding is this: 1) Recent iPhones can use a “Qi Certified” charging pad. 2) These charging pads can be bought for as little as $12 on Amazon. 3) Apple promoted Airpower which could charge up to 3 devices simultaneously. 4) Apple cancelled this product due to overheating . . . so the fact is that you can still charge a phone using a 3rd party Qi certified device . . . so, and I ask this sincerely, “Why is it a BIG deal that Apple cancelled Airpower?” . . . am I missing something?
No.
Maybe that the Airpower was hyped and announced, then delayed, announced again and then finally cancelled is a big difference from past Apple products that have been announced at their own event. The “Airpower is Dead” most likely means ‘don’t expect any further mention of the product in the near future’.
Airpower was put on the agenda for a few reasons.
Timmy’s broken pipeline is making former religious nuts less devout. He is struggling so badly to come up with reasons to have a public event, Airpower was rolled out before it ever worked. He hoped to spark interest from the blogosphere (despite the inconvenient fact that none of the displays worked).
With no Mac Pro to show, Schiller needed something to take the conversation off his innovative ass.
Apple no longer gives a sh!t about Macs so the more white plastic accessories Apple can announce, the more iOS addicts think everything is going great.
For years, Apple has been focused primarily on pushing subscriptions. To break up the monotony, Timmy figured he’d let the last remaining hardware engineer out of the basement, for an afternoon anyway.
Apple so firmly believes it’s stupid rhetoric about a wireless future that it wants to make sure every new piece of hardware be useless at backwards compatibility and totally reliant on super expensive accessories. The Qi charger is the perfect example of an overpriced solution to a lazy mans problem. This is what Apple wants to hold up as innovation.