It looks like the Cupertino colossus plans to release Apple-branded wireless chargers soon. According to two new leaks today, the company will resurrect their “MagSafe” branding for two new wireless chargers to appear alongside the iPhone 12.
MagSafe was a series of proprietary magnetically attached power connectors, originally introduced by Apple on January 10, 2006 along with the MacBook Pro at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco. The connector was held in place magnetically so that if it is tugged — for example, by someone tripping over the cord — it would disconnect from the socket without damaging the connector or the computer power socket, and without pulling the computer off a desktop or table. Despite its popularity with many users, it was discontinued across all Apple product lines between 2016 and 2019 and replaced with USB-C.
The new information today comes via two prolific Apple leakers on social media: Kang, who reports on Weibo with an excellent track record, and L0vetodream on Twitter who has a similarly accurate track record.
According to the reports, Apple is planning to release two wireless chargers this year alongside the iPhone 12: the MagSafe Charger and the MagSafe Duo Charger. The details here are a bit unclear, but the reporting seemingly implies that we will see a smaller MagSafe charger that can only charge one device and another that is slightly larger with support for charging two devices.
Kang also says that the MagSafe chargers will be able to offer up to 15W of power.
MacDailyNews Take: If they work anything like or as well as Apple Watch’s charging, we’re all in on these new MagSafe chargers!
They never should have gotten rid of it. The switch to the Lighting charger in iPhones should have been a MagSafe as well.
Zero excuses.
They need to take the entire lineup back to the same quality control/improvement that brought about the MagSafe connector. It was all about consumer improvement.
It is really quite a problem that Apple insists on having only one port on their phones. It is like they want the port to wear out from overuse with endless adaptors. This is even worse with iPads, that have plenty of room for more ports.
My iPad Air can transmit both data and power to it’s smart keyboard. I wish Apple would standardize on that instead of using it as an excuse to sell $249 keyboards. This is where all the monopoly talk comes from, it really is abusive to their customers. Protecting people from abuse by other powerful groups is a perfectly valid use of government.
ugghhhh I just want USB-C on my phone, I have it on my iPad, my MacBook Pro – just need it on my iPhone.
Apple is patenting a USB-C port in the back of your head, which is a tiny step towards a Matrix-like world. It’s how they’re going to switch on Augmented Reality, in a much better way than with glasses on your head. They plan to go wireless to your brain in 2032 though – as per Lovetodream and Evan Blass’s recent tweets.
FireWire is another one, totally created, owned and controlled by Apple that never should have gone away.
Agreed. It was really valuable to have a fast port that was guaranteed to be on every mac. They dumped Firewire for Thunderbolt, but that turned out to be so stupid-expensive as to be useless to anyone with a budget. (Like Thunderbolt, Firewire was typically about 2x as fast as the USB available at the time, and also more stable then USB.)
I’m diggin’ the “All Metal” look for the new iPhone. The screen looks like a lottery scratcher ticket . . . Does the phone come with a free coin, so you can scratch off the screen ?
Mag Safe for all products!