Something indeed. I don't understand what the issue could be. I have a few $20 wireless chargers that work just fine. I expected Apple to put one in premium packaging and sell it for $150.
>> Specifically, I’ve heard that they ran too hot because the 3D charging coils in close proximity to one another required very, very cautious power management.
Is it lack of satisfaction with those tradeoffs? Is there a more fundamental flaw somewhere else? It would be nice to know what actually caused this decision.
Maybe it was capable of charging the watch and the AirPods just fine, it was the phone’s power demands that were the thing killing it.
Worth the huge premium it would've sold for? Probably not for a good deal of people, but it would've sold.
I thought you might be able to use a 2D array of small loops but a little bit of modeling shows that to be a pretty dumb idea.
I l suspect that Apple has so little in house experience with moving parts these days that they’d have a hard time shipping a good one that worked this way.
TBH I don’t find wireless charging today a particularly big win. It’s a bit easier than plugging in a cable. Of course, in the watch, it eliminates a port which is a win for other reasons.
From a first principles point of view it seems to me like it might just work.
AirPower was intended to have basically an entire surface of charging pixels. You could place phones, watches, AirPods, and combos of those on the mat in any orientation. There was also no sweetspot.
By attemping to make inductive charging mats work really well, Apple ran into some big tech contraints.