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Comment by slg | Hacker News Reader

It is a slimy move to wait a week after the wireless charging Airpods were released before announcing this. You can't tell me that Apple didn't know this was coming. What percentage of people who have bought new Airpods in the last week wouldn't have made that purchase if they knew AirPower was never going to be released?

EDIT: Several people are responding that other manufactures make wireless chargers, so what is the big deal? Sure, you are right other options exist. There are also a wide variety of USB-C laptop chargers available that could charge your Macbook. There would still be plenty of complaints if Apple stopped selling their USB-C power brick. Two of the primary reasons people buy Apple products are because of the ecosystem and their standard of quality. Now people are forced out of the Apple ecosystem and must buy a product from 3rd parties that don't have the same quality requirements. What happens when that $5 Qi charge from some noname brand fries your devices battery?

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Normally I'd agree, but the fact that the AirPower mat is printed onto the back of the new AirPods case box does seem to be a pretty good indicator that this was a very sudden decision.

That is unless they were trying to make it look sudden, but I don't think we have good enough reason to be that cynical about it.

The new AirPods boxes were printed in 2018: https://twitter.com/horwitz/status/1110977803183374341

But even if we take copyright year to be the same as the printing year, Apple would almost certainly have just made a new box if they'd known well in advance they were going to cancel AirPower. This still shows an unusual level of disorganization on their part, which is surprising enough that I'm willing to believe a sudden decision was made.

There's a good chance that we'll see this somewhat proven in that Apple will probably get that box discontinued within the next couple weeks.

Who cares - they delay it, reprint and repackage it. Apple is a massive company that’s gone through monumental efforts to enforce quality (in the past). They could’ve at least done that.

On the other hand, announcing it now means that anyone who really would have changed their minds still can. Apple will almost certainly accept returns, even in countries which don't provide statutory rights to return unwanted goods within a certain time period. Announcing it a month from now, or later, would make such returns impossible.

It does seem like this is the very latest date such an announcement could have been made, though.

What do you mean by "Apple will accept returns"? There's no Apple Store in my country and I'm not sure that ordinary shops would accept returns, especially after box was opened.

Can't speak to what's available in your country, but I've never had issues returning opened stuff (Best Buy, Microcenter, etc) as long as it's in new condition and in the original box, with receipt (most stores have a 14 day return period)

Heh, that’s almost unheard of in the Middle East for example. You have to fight tooth and nail to even get basic warranty.

Not sure about the rest of the world, but I would say that the US is an outlier when it comes to return policies.

The EU would like to have a word with you.

Germany (EU?) gives you 14 days unconditional return for online purchases, and brick and mortar retailers usually match or surpass that to stay competitive with online retailers.

While that might sound like a consumer-friendly thing, the flip side is that it adds to the base price, and worse, returning items adds significantly to the environmental footprint (delivery and packaging). I've worked for large online retailers, and women returning more than half of their ordered cloth items is happening all the time.

I agree that it has negative effects for things like consumer electronics, and the system can be gamed (buy and return instead of renting, etc.).

But unless we really tighten up the standards for clothing sizes I don't see how you could sell them online without half of them not fitting. Especially with woman's clothes, where form fit is more important and manufacturers seem to take more liberty with labeling sizes.

It’s nowhere near unconditional and not even close to anything goes culture in US.

> most stores have a 14 day return period

A return period is even mandated by law in most advanced countries by consumer protection laws. The length varies and sometimes there are some exceptions like software and customized (engraved products).

I was always under the impression that in the US, returns that were not because of a defect were more of a courtesy than a legal requirement:

> Many retailers, as part of their business models, allow returns if customers change their minds or receive unwanted items as gifts. While many retailers have decided this makes for the best business practice, they aren't legally required to accept returns. Rather, retailers are required to accept returns only if the sold good is defective or if they otherwise break the sales contract. [1]

[1] https://consumer.findlaw.com/consumer-transactions/customer-...

Absolutely not.

Returning used anything in US is cultural courtesy.

Returning in EU is mandated by law, but for online purchases only and unused products, with hygienic exclusions - the purpose being giving you the same chance as in a brick store to see the product. Opening the box, returning, sure. Using for a week, putting it in your ears, then returning, nope.

Apple Store policy varies by country slightly, but generally they allow 14 days unconditional return. That’s rather unique, and entirely voluntary, and Apple Premium Resellers rarely (never around here) have the same policy.

So obviously it depends on the country.

In many parts of the world there are consumer rights which guarantees the ability to return items even if opened.

So apple doesn't accept returns, except when compelled to. Therefore we can assume that they have screwed some people in the process.

I am not sure but I guess you can start online return or through a support agent and then ship it back?

I bought the wireless charging version, but I also had it engraved. I'm guessing that will prevent it from being returnable. Hopefully Apple issues a blanket refund of the price difference for everyone.

Why should they? It works fine on the bog-standard industry charger.

That's a fair point if they actually do work fine on other chargers. My experience with previous wireless chargers was that they only actually worked if they were designed for the specific phone (e.g. Pixel 3 XL stand). Lots of going back and forth between charging and not charging and the phone itself getting really hot and not actually charging.

I fully accept that maybe my other chargers were cheap and crappy though, so maybe I'm just unlucky.

I've got a basic flat pad I bought from Amazon for like $15 that charges my iPhone XS and my Airpods quite happily.

Apple has a 1-week (or is it 2 weeks?) unconditional return policy. It actually disservices them to announce it after since they may now get a bunch of open box returns.

Additionally your edit doesn’t hold because apple sells iPhones without an official wireless charger either. The AirPods can also be charged with a wire, not to mention any compatible qi charger.

If you’re going to call out apple for making the charging standard based on USB power delivery (an open standard), well then I think you’ve lost everyone. The whole point of Qi, and USB PD is that you can use any charger, even non Apple ones.

Apple has much less consumer friendly return policies in many non-US markets. Take Hong Kong for example: "All products purchased at Apple Store in Hong Kong cannot be returned or exchanged. Exceptions for exchange will be allowed for defective products only." https://www.apple.com/hk/shop/help/exchange_return

I'd have a hard time arguing that the AirPods are defective because the non-bundled mat on the box didn't ship.

This is...exactly the same as nearly every other retailer in HK. Off the top of my head - of places I’ve bought from recently - only Ikea allows random returns in HK. Everyone else is the same as Apple.

Unlimited returns for any reason at every store is quite an American thing.

You can even return marijuana to a pot shop. It's hilarious.

I actually think it's a good policy that while emotionally one may be hesitant to offer, but in reality it generates more profit for the retailer so long as they're not doing anything shady or anti-consumer in the first place.

Or unless you’re in a business that has disproportionate number of asshole customers. Sony probably couldn’t afford to offer unconditional returns in the PlayStation store...

I'm fairly certain the exception is Hong Kong. Japan, Taiwan, all allow returns under the standard policy.

Hong Kong probably does not allow it for other reasons. Maybe the policy gets exceptionally abused there.

It’s exactly that: https://9to5mac.com/2017/08/15/apple-hong-kong-scalpers/

> Apple has a 1-week (or is it 2 weeks?) unconditional return policy. It actually disservices them to announce it after since they may now get a bunch of open box returns.

Yeah, but how many people are actually going to go through the hassle of returning them?

>Additionally your edit doesn’t hold because apple sells iPhones without an official wireless charger either.

AirPower was supposed to be that official wireless charger. So is your argument that my point doesn't matter because cancelling AirPower is actually worse than I initially mentioned? Either way, the new AirPods are a little different than iPhones. The primary difference between AirPods 1 and AirPods 2 was the wireless charging. The wireless charging was never the top-line feature of any new iPhones.

>If you’re going to call out apple for making the charging standard based on USB power delivery

That is not why I am calling Apple out. I am calling them out because they are refusing to offer a first party solution for a product's primary feature and "it is just an open standard" is not a valid excuse for that fact.

I briefly considered buying some when they were announced, with the idea of "hmm, AirPower must be coming out soon". Sucker for Apple products that I am, it would pair well with the iPhone XS and Watch I have, and they can all live on the AirPower mat.

And then I said, meh, I'll buy some when I see the announcement for AirPower, given the problems they've obviously had bringing to market. How many others are less skeptical than me, I do not know. But for the time being, I'm content to plug my stuff in if I still have to use separate mats for phone and headphones.

I have the Studio Neat Material dock which charges all three (Airpods via lightning) and it's pretty convenient.

Nomad has a new Base Station that can change multiple Qi devices plus an Apple Watch as well.

Basically at this point there are a lot of alternatives on the market, and some of them are actually nicer because they hold the Watch up in the right orientation for Nightstand mode and work with loop style bands.

Thanks for the pointers. I may just ignore the sunk cost of the $79 Apple Watch stand and go for the Nomad Qi Apple Watch dock. Pricey, but that's some nice looking kit for some thing I'll have to look at on my nighstand every night.

I've had regular airpods since they came out and the airpower would be nice but I don't see a major need for it.

Wireless chargers are cheaply available from many other manufacturers (much cheaper than Airpower was going to be). Selling on the basis of wireless charging is not slimy or underhanded.

Exactly. I bought the wireless charging case for Qi compatibility. No way I was spending £200 on an Apple branded charger, but wireless charging is a great UX and makes the AirPods feel like a nicer product.

It'd be a slimier move to release a $200 charging pad that doesn't work well.

That's nothing for Apple. They have released $2000 laptops that don't work well.

But not on purpose. In this case, after a sustained engineering effort, Apple finally and reluctantly concluded that they could not build this particular product up to their standard, so they decided to just not build it at all, instead.

We should applaud that. That's how things should work.

>But not on purpose.

You could argue that after three models with butterfly keyboards, it's pretty purposeful. It's not like no one pointed it out to them.

Not sure why this is being downvoted. You could excuse the first model using the butterfly keyboard as them not knowing the issues, but multiple revisions have been released since and the keyboard was untouched. That can't not be deliberate.

I mean, they clearly did try to fix it, as evidenced by the membrane they added to the newest revision. The fact that this didn’t actually resolve the issue is unrelated.

Ugh they should really get rid of that keyboard

This is ignoring the fact that very few people have issues with these keyboards overall.

How many people are very few people?

There's 35,000 signatures on a petition to recall the keyboards. There's two class-action lawsuits. There's how many different online writings about the issue?

You can get signatures and file suits for almost anything, that's pretty meaningless. If it wasn't an insignificant percentage, they would've done something about it.

So your basis for the "very few people" is Apple's inaction?

They're really the only entity who knows how widespread this is, and is financially incentivized to address it. Additionally, my employer has probably 30,000 of these keyboards in service and it's not a significant issue.

They're also financially incentivised to downplay the issue considering the class-action lawsuits alleging that they were selling defective keyboards.

I don't think Apple is too concerned about class action lawsuits over keyboards... They'll settle and pay a little cash, another entirely insignificant number.

I had a 2016 MacBook Pro which absolutely had a lot of issues with the butterfly keyboard. It was clearly a bad product. But they definitely fixed the issues with the 2018 one.

There definitely isn't the same level of complains on the internet about it.

There are less complaints about 2018 model. They didn't really fix it.

If my (non-Apple) laptop is anything to go by, the keyboards with that crappy low-rise design have average life expectancy of one year. The 2018 modification will not get clogged with dust until the end of 2019, at which point people will be complaining about it too.

My 2018 MacBook Pro works great. No issues with the hardware at all and I love the TouchBar.

What exactly is wrong with them ?

The keyboards. My 2016 MacBook Pro has had issues with several of the keys.

Apple has extended the warranty on the keyboard to four years, but it's not like they will actually give you a working keyboard design, but rather switch out the keyboard for the same design.

They're also being sued for the keyboard issues.

I know that they had issues with the 2016 and 2017 models. I owned one.

But those issues were fixed in the 2018 one. Which is why they haven't needed to extend the warranty at all.

Not really.

Joanna Stern's article was about her 2018 MacBook Air's keyboard, which has the same membrane as the 2018 MacBook Pro keyboard.

Sadly people are reporting issues with the 2018 versions as well. For example, this article hilariously was written without the 'r' and 'e' keys to showcase what's been happening recently: https://www.wsj.com/graphics/apple-still-hasnt-fixed-its-mac...

> "I know that they had issues with the 2016 and 2017 models."

So it's no longer your belief that the 2017 model was significantly better than the 2016 version? Or was it significantly better, but still shit? In one or two years will the 2018 version in turn be considered significantly better but still shit?

I have both a 2016 and 2017 one. I did not notice any difference in keyboard quality and they both failed after about a year. Keys either stopped picking up input, or would repeat. On one my space bar repeated a lot and just felt wrong.

I won’t be touching the 2018 one until I see reports of people that have had them for over a year. It sounds like based on the new WSJ reporting, the 2018 has problems too though.

I don’t believe Apple even ever officially admitted the membrane design in the 2018 model was to keep dust out and improve reliability. Pretty sure the official reason was noise reduction.

You're one of the lucky ones; my 2018 laptop has unreliable "o" , "s", "h", "j", "k", and "e" keys (can you tell I'm a heavy vim user?), and the black plastic around the "K" glyph has started to wear away.

For me it's endless stuttering with spacebar, e, and r for some reason.

>What percentage of people who have bought new Airpods in the last week wouldn't have made that purchase if they knew AirPower was never going to be released?

Like, zero?

Apple will almost certainly allow you to cancel or return without cost. I dont think it will have that much of an actual impact, which is why I doubt that fewer sales are why they chose to announce now.

They were probably more concerned about negative headlines and media coverage leading up to the event when choosing to reveal this information a week after.

Returning has a cost (The time+effort).

It is a slimy move to wait a week after the wireless charging Airpods were released before announcing this.

Slimey? Really? Slimey is opening a factory along side a river and then dumping the waste chemicals in the river while touting the number of jobs added to the local economy.

In Apple's case, they announced a product early, turns out they couldn't deliver on it. No harm, no foul... okay maybe reputational foul, but nothing of real consequence.

The lather the Apple tech pundit crowd has worked itself up over the Airpower nonsense (you can't call it anything more than that at this point) is bewildering. If Apple would have delivered I probably would have bought it, my stuff still charges the legacy way, I'll probably buy more Apple stuff in the future, the world moves on.

Honestly, I was never excited about wireless charging.

Then, on a whim when I ordered my Pixel 3, I put the stand in my cart. I didn't even realize it was wireless. I just like the nice look of a well-thought-out phone stand, and the feel of it in the dark when I read myself to sleep.

I then remembered that I replaced my old Pixel because the port had problems. Less wear on the ports is important.

Wireless is a huge deal for devices that require frequent charging.

Wireless is a huge deal for devices that require frequent charging.

I won’t argue with that, I just can’t square the lack of “Apple branded” wireless charging as a pain point.

To the point of less wear. My iPhone 5’s Lightening port still works just fine but the phone itself needs replacing. My perfectly usable iPad Air however now has a Lightening port which is so worn out that I need to engage in a voodoo ritual of supporting the cable with a matchbox to ensure sufficient contact and _just_ the right angle to get it charging... then walk away carefully so as to not disturb the tech spirits.

I’ve warmed significantly to wireless charging just because of that, and the lowered charging speed wouldn’t be a problem since I could leave devices overnight on the AirPower mat. I was especially excited about the proposed design of AirPower because precise placement wasn’t needed. I could easily imagine that making it much more handy than precisely aligning everything in the dark when putting away my iPad.

Apple explicitly marketed AirPower support as a main feature of the next generation of AirPods. To a lot of people on Twitter, it was THE main feature of AirPods 2.

Saying "hey, buy the new version of AirPods at a $50 premium because it's compatible with this new thing that's about to come out" and then fumbling on that product you just marketed to drive sales of AirPods isn't kosher.

Wireless charging is still supported though, that’s the mind boggling part. Nobody says “Ok I bought this wireless charging pad what am I going to do with it now?”

No matter what Apple does, people will be pissed off at something.

Contrary to your point:

A. They announced the cancellation a week later, you still have time to return your AirPods 2.

B. If they had gone with substandard product, then you will still complain, why didn't Apple cancel this product a long time ago!? Why did they release this piece of shit? We will have #AirPowerGate storm on Twitter, armchair specialists would start analyzing and delivering nasty analysis about Apple, Louis Rossman would make a new angry video, etc... Jeez guys.

See, Apple is in a no-win situation here. No matter what they do, people complain obsessively without understanding and putting yourself in their shoes.

They could have cancelled the AP2 too, or at least announced this cancellation before that launch.

what? Why would they cancel the new AirPods?

Why? The new AirPods still have Hey Siri and longer battery life on telephone calls. If you choose the Qi case they still charge wirelessly with other Qi chargers.

It’s a solid spec bump to a product. Not a huge leap (which is there is no 2 in the name) but it’s not like they were ONLY going to work with the AirPower and had no other new features.

No reason to cancel them.

Announce cancellation of AirPower before selling a new product that would have used it, rather than after.

They put themselves in that "no-win situation" by pre-announcing the product. If they were profiting by selling products based on future compatability with airpower, that could be fraud.

Literally every major company does this. Tesla announces their cars years ahead of production. Thousands of products are announced at the CES - cameras, phones, laptops, etc.

Things go wrong sometimes after announcing a product.

> that could be fraud

No, it is certainly not.

Apple had reputation of not doing that. The last few years they do it all the time, are late all the time and can’t learn the lesson (see: last week’s announcements).

It’s not that common, except today’s Apple and, well, Tesla, to announce early and be very late delivering.

So why announce something you can't deliver?

Apple is not the only company that announces products. Go to CES and you'll find hundreds of products. I am sure some of them never make it to production.

Apple isn't the only one. While I agree that announcing a product and not delivering is a bad thing - shit happens, especially here where the engineering team busted balls for months to correct and issue and they couldn't resolve it.

Sometimes, it is safety or regulatory failure. There are many reasons why a product can't make it to the market.

“You tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try.” Homer Simpson

> What happens when that $5 Qi charge from some noname brand fries your devices battery?

Qi has been out a long time. Is there any indication whatsoever that Qi spec devices are doing this?

>There would still be plenty of complaints if Apple stopped selling their USB-C power brick.

Of all the examples you could give, I actually think just about nobody would care about the USB-C power brick. To be honest, its kind of stupid already to buy a first party charger. It';s throwing $50+ into the wind.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DW3QGJJ

I’ve been much happier with the elegant Apple charging equipment than anything else I’ve used.

The bricks are reconfigurable to use different outputs and different inputs, and the cables roll up neatly with the help of a simple hook and loop cable tie.

I’d be sad if Apple stopped selling their chargers, primarily because with their engineering I’m pretty sure I get a safe well engineered product, whereas 3rd parties can display both lower quality and some really concerning cost cutting measures.

http://www.righto.com/2016/03/counterfeit-macbook-charger-te... http://www.righto.com/2014/05/a-look-inside-ipad-chargers-pr...

Sure one could then find reputable vendors, the Apple ecosystem has quite a few but most people would more than likely get the cheapest one from Amazon and sadly some of those products carry some serious safety risks.

I like that Apple has their own offering which one can feel confident in using. It is also nice to see that they will walk away from a design such as AirPower if they realize they cannot ship it to the standard which should be required for power delivery. At it’s base such a product should at least be easy to use and safe.

I ordered Airpods with wireless charging without even considering if/when Airpower would ship (when they announced it, I thought about the engineering challenges, considered what I know about electronics, and figure they would need a miracle to pull it off).

I have other (single-device, of course) charging pads and they work great, so it isn't a big deal.

My thoughts exactly. This can't be something that was discovered something last night after hours, by someone burning the midnight oil.

Me personally, I've built up a mental "queue" of things that need to line up before I invest in a 1) new phone (that supports wireless charging, 2) an Apple Watch, and 3) AirPods (the new ones). And all of those I planned on getting around the time of AirPower. Now that it's been nixed? I mean, I still dig the Watch but I'll probably keep my current phone and headphones for years, at least while they all still work just fine.

Pretty bummed for the people that got them expecting AirPower, though.

I think you are stretching to find a reason to blame them. It did not prevent people from buying iPhone X which had a wireless charging too, what makes you think that it somehow affected AirPods case sales?

I bought a pair today. I mostly bought them for the incremental speed bump and supposed longer battery time. Otherwise I would have just bought a wireless charging case to go with my series 1 pair.

14 day return policy.

Depending on jurisdiction. In Hong Kong (probably because of scalpers that sold to gray market in China etc.) there used to be a 30% restocking fee, and now no returns whatsoever, full stop.

> Two of the primary reasons people buy Apple products are because of the ecosystem and their standard of quality. Now people are forced out of the Apple ecosystem and must buy a product from 3rd parties that don't have the same quality requirements.

This isn't the first time that Apple have decided that ecosystem didn't matter - some of the USB-C dongles (the Ethernet adapter for one) that Apple sell are branded Belkin, they ceded the Thunderbolt display to LG (that LG really Just Worked [1]) and they've abandoned Airport.

1: https://9to5mac.com/2017/02/13/lg-ultrafine-5k-display-apple...

If they felt they could not deliver a quality product, and decide not to release it, what is the big deal

The new AirPods can be charged on Qi chargers, that are available on Amazon for $10. No one bought wireless charging AirPods because of AirPower.

What's the downside of Qi chargers? (Assuming they didn't figure out some hardware problem that Apple couldn't figure out.)

There isn't a specific downside. AirPower was an attempt to add additional functionality by letting you just dump stuff on the charging mat, while all current charging pads require one device per section and a specific orientation.

They typically charge devices slower than the wired approach and I find it is sometimes hard to place a phone in just the right spot where it charges.

What Apple was doing that was hard, was to charge multiple devices at a time on a single pad without having set locations.

Fast chargers should charge faster than the default 5 watt wired charger.

I'll state up front that my experience with Qi is from about five years ago with a Samsung Note 3 with a Samsung induction charging case. But I found it to be fiddly enough (have to hit the sweet spot on between the charger and the coils on the case/phone) to be just barely more convenient than plugging in.

My impression of what AirPower was supposed to do was allow me to just throw my shit on the nightstand charging mat and the phone, watch, and earphones just magically charge without fiddling. Not being a hardware engineer, my impression was also that, in order to pull this off, involved big, hot coils and Apple couldn't get rid of the "hot" part.

So now the solution is to buy separate Qi pads for phone and earphone case, and I still need a proprietary charger for the Watch because it doesn't use Qi. Or just say "fuck it", and plug my phone and old AirPods case into the Lightning connectors I already have by the bed, and use the Apple Watch charging stand I already bought.

In summary, I'm one of those that would have spent the $200 on Apple kit if they could have pulled it off because I don't find Qi to be quite the solution I was looking for.

They're way better now, but I specifically only buy the Samsungs with fast charging that have a fan built in. I have to really mangle how it's put on the charger (like half of the phone hanging off the edge) to have any issues.

I've got a few of these for my old s8 and s10 and they work great. Only downside I can think of is when my battery is low and I need to keep taking the phone off the charger to respond to something, at that point I just cable it in so I can use it and charge at the same time. It's also of course not as fast as cabled fast charging so if I'm very low I'll cable it.

That's not incredibly frequent but does come up every few weeks.

I love them at my desks but I use cables everywhere else as I'm usually grabbing my phone to use it (like in bed).

I have one of those for my S8+. It's nominally better in terms of positioning tolerance than the old Qi charger I had for my Droid, but not by much. I still have to have the phone within a couple of millimeters of the left-right sweet spot for it to work. I'm glad I have the charger, but it's still pretty fiddly. Maybe it has a wider range if you don't use a case, so that the back of the phone is closer to the mat. Aside to those considering: it charges noticeably slower than the straight plug fast charge, but still faster than the old, non fast charge systems.

I'm using Xiaomi charger with iPhone 8 and it's exactly this: I just put phone there without any kind of aligning and it just works. Wonderful product, something so much in Apple style. Single device only, of course, but it's cheap enough to buy as many of those circles as needed. And it's barely producing any heat. May be they compromised charging speed, I'm not sure, I just put it there for night.

I have the official wireless charging stand for Pixel 3, and FWIW, it doesn't seem to have problems charging it even if the phone is visibly tilted and off-center on the stand.

But perhaps that's exactly why it's a stand and not a mat - there are only so many ways to put a phone on it such that it stays there.

Qi is the standard AirPods and iPhones support to charge themselves wirelessly - it's like asking what's the downside of a lightning port :)

> No one

I did. I don't want to add another cable to my nightstand, I wanted to replace my Apple Watch puck with Airpower and gain the ability to charge my headphones there too, and then if I ever get a wireless charging iPhone be able to get rid of the lightning cable as well. I don't mind trading the lightning cable between my phone and Airpods, but I imagined I wouldn't have to for long with the AirPower releasing seeming so imminent.

I feel like a sucker today.

Nomad makes a very very nice nightstand charger that will do all that for you.

https://hellonomad.com/products/base-station-apple-watch

I don't have this version, but I have their other base station that charges up to 4 devices at once: 2 wirelessly, and 2 via cables. I'm extremely happy with it.

https://hellonomad.com/collections/power/products/base-stati...

You can return them to Apple for a full refund. Please update us if you do.

Narrator: He won't.

Pretty pathetic response. When did Apple turn into the sort of company their fans used to laugh at?

This feature was planned and advertised. People buy based on these things. I'd love a Apple wireless charging mat. I also like their Watch. Charging the lot of them would maybe move me from Android. Oh no! It's disappeared. Steve Jobs would never have put up with this.

Actually did. I’ll try to use of the alternative then. What Qi charger you recommend?

I have this one, and really like it: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00C40OG22/ref=oh_aui_sear... – it costs $10.99 and has anti-slip rubber on its surface.

I also own another that has a completely smooth surface and my phone tends to slide off.

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