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Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

> The included charging dock is also a speaker.

I've gotta say, charging docks are a killer feature for me and I don't understand why Apple doesn't do the same.

There used to be the Logitech Base [1] that I still use with the previous-gen (9th) iPad, but the smart connector in the newest iPad (10th gen) is no longer compatible with it, as the angle of the edge changed.

It's been years since I plugged in my phone or AirPods -- I only wirelessly charge. The idea that we should still be plugging in tablets with Lightning or USB-C is bizarre to me. A charging dock is the way to go, and it's so unexpected to me that Google realizes this while Apple doesn't. It's actually the only reason I haven't upgraded my iPad.

[1] https://www.logitech.com/en-us/products/ipad-accessories/bas...

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Apple isn't good at charging.

There's a lot of aspect they excel, graphic design, ergonomics, material etc. Charging has never been their forte. I present as evidence:

- the original humongous 31 pin ipod cable

- the harpooned mouse

- the wireless charging mat they never could deliver

- the first Apple pencil (and its usb-c charging cable...)

- their previous gen desktop keyboards charging over lightning

Their only great charging idea was probably magsafe for laptops.

And (from greats), iphone magsafe wireless magnetic charging.

- the iPhone battery case with the battery bump on the back

If I recall this was like eighty bucks and guaranteed to break your charging port within ten days.

>Apple isn't good at charging.

They're pretty good at changing how you charge every few years and charging you for that change though.

I'd reword that as:

Can't agree: Cupertino constantly changes charging copling and consequently can charge for that change.

I think mine was more nicely balanced, but I suppose the increase in alliteration may be worth it.

Lightning out-lived micro USB, two types of mini USB and a thousand proprietary device specific connectors. What are you talking about?

Apple bad -HN

Lightning was put on the iPhone in 2012. Other phone manufacturers switched to micro-USB in 2009 at the behest of the EU. Apple even released a micro-USB -> 30 pin connector to comply with the law.

Digital cameras, and other devices do have a habit of picking other connectors.

There were two 30 pin connectors by the way. I had to get an adapter to use my 3g iPhone on an older car stereo that supported iPods. All it did was flip a couple of the pins around.

Are they?

There have been two iPhone charge cables, and the original was the iPod charger.

How many have been used by other companies?

That mouse charger is ludicrous. Worst apple design ever?

The fact that there are multiple charge cables shows how good Apple is at charging.

Apple is great at charging? No, they are not. I have a 2019 Macbook Pro with an Intel i9. When working, the i9 pretty much gets throttled down to the performance of an i5 because the thermal design is terrible, but it's a different story. But even when the CPU get throttled down, my battery gets discharged while being connected to the most performant Apple charger (96W). An no, the laptop is not faulty, I can reproduce it with a second Macbook with exactly the same specs.

And when I'm not using the original Apple charger, because I have a nice monitor with PD over USB-C, the Macbook regularly refuses to charge, not always, but every single time when I need it to charge. No other device has any issues with the monitor (tested with a Acer R13 Chromebook, Pixel 6 phone, Lenovo/Dell/Acer/Asus laptops, Lenovo Yoga Tab 13 Tablet, Steam Deck, etc.)

Edit: PD output of the monitor is also at ~96W

You're missing the joke.

They are good at charging you money

> I have a 2019 Macbook Pro with an Intel i9

I have a work Arm based MacBook Pro that last at least 12 hours on battery, never gets hot, I have never heard the fan, etc.

I guess that parent comment was a joke about charging money...

I would include wireless magsafe in the bad decision category. The idea is good, but the implementation… they should have found a way to make it backward compatible, at least for the first generation of devices, and to be a really good company, introduced it as a standard from the get-go. But that wouldn't be very Apple. So now we have a few generations of wireless charger e-waste, which is a lot more material than a cable.

I've been using the same Anker charging pad for the last 4 years through several iPhone upgrades. I use it to charge my AirPod Pro 2s as well.

MagSafe is a Qi charger with some magnets around the rim. It works with any Qi wireless charging device.

Yes, but Apple could have introduced it as an open design on introduction. That would effectively have been two products; the functionality and the open-handed, wide-ranging ecological solution. They chose to offer a different second product, an implied proprietary, exclusive design. Now, three years later, it's an open standard, in the meantime there is probably thousands of tons of e-waste of interim products.

If you consider a decade a few years, sure.

Oh it’s you! The hypothetical person who gets mad about a once-in-a-decade charger change! I’ve heard so much about you in every discussion ever about why Apple hasn’t moved the iPhone to USB-C, you’re very influential.

The magsafe laptop charger is my favorite charger, the switch the USB c had my laptop flying at least once. Good decision they want back.

>- the original humongous 31 pin iPod cable

The first two iPod models had a 6-pin FireWire port. It wasn't until the third generation that they introduced the 30-pin connector that worked with both FireWire and USB on the PC side to introduce Windows compatibility.

And then they changed the spec on the 31 pin connector half way through it's life. I had an iPod ready car stereo back in the day, and it required an adapter to use my iPhone even though they were both the same physical connector. Fuckin stereo was expensive back then especially one with iPod integration. I had the thing for maybe 2 years at the most. Felt pretty burned by that one.

> Their only great charging idea was probably magsafe for laptops.

And even then they botched the gen 1 magsafe connector joint's design so badly it resulted in a lawsuit and settlement to replace every one of them.

Day 1 user of the Apple Watch. I hated Gen 1. But I have the most vivid memory of the magnetic wireless charging solution it came with. It felt novel and ahead of its time.

The charging dock is cool, but feels like a missed opportunity to have it be a regular Google Home speaker when the tablet is undocked.

> undocked

You mean docked? And is it not? I thought it basically acts like a Nest Hub Max [0] when docked?

[0] https://store.google.com/ca/product/google_nest_hub_max

I believe they did mean "undocked" so if the tablet is in the other room the dock could operate as a Google Home independently.

Oh I see, so just the dock being a speaker by itself. Interesting. Yeah not sure if it has any real processing in it, or if it's purely driven by the tablet itself when connected.

It's a missed opertunity to add a teeny bit of compute to it. This dock is essentially the same as what Lenovo released a couple years back only that was also a bluetooth speaker.

> teeny bit of compute

You mean, a whole other processor + memory + firmware + microphone + network + ... ?

Yes, like in the thing that they practically give away (Home Mini for $50)

I got my home minis for like $25 CAD.

Yup it's definitely a missed opportunity. We use our Google home devices as intercom. However if the dock is only a Google home device when docked, then it's unreliable as an intercom. So can't really use that feature.

Perhaps just buy a Home Mini for $50 in addition to this tablet?

Missing the point.

Au contraire.

A vendor has produced a device that does what it does, and is marketed at an optimised price point.

Someone has looked at it and said 'this device should be a different device' and claimed that it's a trivial matter to make it more like a device that they want.

I can't dispute they want a different device, but I can dispute it's a) trivial, and b) sensible, for the vendor to have produced a different device instead.

It's a common trope on HN, where the local demographic's expectations and use cases are often much dissimilar to the general population's. And that's okay, so long as we're aware of it.

No, your comment did totally miss the poiint. They were discussing how they believed a better implementation would have been doable, not too expensive, and fulfilled many needs in one device.

Your response was suggesting to just buy a second device. That wasn't useful; they know they can buy a second device, and we know they know that because they mentioned that device originally.

They never asked "How can I have all this functionality in my home?", but that's the question your comment was answering.

> I can dispute it's a) trivial, and b) sensible, for the vendor to have produced a different device instead

Agreed. That would have usefully contributed to the discussion about whether or not it would have been trivial and sensible.

If my grandmother had wheels, she would have been a bicycle.

It wasn't a 'better implementation' they were proposing, just a different one.

A configuration that would necessarily involve more $'s -- so this would immediately be the opposite of better for people who are happy with the actual existing price & feature matrix.

It would also add more complexity - unique firmware, operational questions around what happens if either / both components are playing music before they are docked / undocked, etc.

The poster was tacitly suggesting an extra $50 for unwanted features was a small price for everyone else to pay for their convenience. I was suggesting their needs could be readily satisfied, without it costing anyone else anything, by them obtaining two discrete units.

That was the headline error in the Verge's coverage too ...

The Pixel Tablet is half of what it could have been https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/11/23718860/pixel-tablet-doc...

But I really don't understand - that would require the dock to have a screen, a SoC, mic's etc. That would be a completely different and much more expensive piece of hardware.

No way they could have included that with the tablet, unless they called it a bundle (which is what it would have been) and charged more.

Put the $49 Google Home Mini in the dock and charge $99 for it as an add-on.

Or honestly just include it for free since there was a time when Google was literally just giving the minis away.

Why a screen in a speaker? Minis don't have them

The HP Touchpad had an awesome wireless charging stand all the way back in 2011.[0] What I especially liked about it is that WebOS (before I blew it away and loaded Android onto the tablet) could switch to a slideshow mode when it was left on the stand, and so your Touchpad could serve as a digital picture frame while not in use.

[0] https://www.phonearena.com/news/HP-TouchPad-Touchstone-Charg...

Or you could set it up to show the clock when not in use, which was what I did. (I still like to be able to glance at a clock.) I have yet to install Android on it; so, maybe I'll do that this weekend.

I'm not going to get a Pixel Tablet, but I really do like the idea of a charging dock speaker.

I like the dock idea as well

Couldn't you just get a Nest Mini and 3d Print a cover for it with a charging connector built-in?

I know the existing tablets on the market don't lend themselves to being docked, but my point is what if you want a speaker and a tablet and a dock, and the speaker should work when the tablet isn't docked, it's actually just 2 devices jammed together.

Some smartass engineer should have sold Tim Cook on the docks by rebranding them as dongles. Then Apple would have put out ten different coloured dongle-docks for each new device.

I keep my ipad pro 2018 12.9" in a logitech slim folio that gives me the same standing position and all I need to do is plug in a usb-c to the ipad. The audio on the ipad pro is great, no need for another speaker in a dock. And along with a mouse it makes it an almost functional microsoft office experience, and folds down for drawing in procreate.

The case just looks nicer. the keyboard case is more functional for me.

https://www.logitech.com/en-ca/products/ipad-keyboards/slim-...

here's the thing with wireless charing - and this may not apply to your use case. when you're plugged in, you're running on the cable. my laptop for example, which I set to charge to 80% and stop, is pretty much always plugged in unless I'm carrying it between rooms. my phone - an android phone - has always been plugged in to charge. the battery acts as a surge protector.

now what happens when you wireless charge. your device is running on your battery, 24/7, charging and discharging while you sleep.

Here I am with a phone that's over 10 years old, flashed with the latest android, that I use for email and sites like this or youtube about 3 hours per day, and infrequent navigation. maybe an hour of call time, about 5 hours of screen time per day.

over a decade later, my battery lasts several days w/o a charge. my wife is probably more like you and I get her a new iphone every 3 years. she wireless charges - always. her battery life after 3 years of this, is absolute crap, because mine is discharging 5 hours/day, and hers is discharging 24 hours per day.

what is bizarre is when people think plugging a cable into a reversible port is some kind of a task or inconvenience compared to placing it aligned on a round circle. please share your thought about the insurmountable inconvenience of having to press the pump on the soap dispenser instead, or having to turn the knob on a door.

wires are a mess.

I do wonder if something like the MagSafe (laptop) adaptor would strike a happy medium.

Also - I don't know if Apple's 15w Qi is strong enough for a tablet.

You make a good point - there are loads of third-party magnetic charging cables out there, but I never saw the point when I have a wireless charger.

I might have to give the cables a try next time I replace my battery, see how it affects longevity.

It's like $50 to get your battery replaced. The convenience is worth $50 (I'd spend more than that on worn-out lightning cables)

1) I can’t find a source confirming your worry about wireless charging. Counter example source[0]. Perhaps other causes lead to what you observed. 2) The difference between cable charging and wireless is more obvious when you charge the phone tens of times during the day. If you argue that’s not needed because you always charge at night, then you get into having to manage the battery state. With wireless you can mostly forget about the battery: Simply place it on the charger (preferably an angled one like the Pixel Tablet’s dock for further use) anytime you can and you are unlikely to ever have to worry about charging - even if you don’t charge overnight.

[0] https://www.magfast.com/magfast-news/does-wireless-charging-...

what phone?

Apple has been rumoured to develop a HomePod/iPad dock thing for a while. I hope it happens (but not like this terrible mockup)

https://www.macrumors.com/2022/10/15/apple-ipad-dock-smart-h...

When I recently worked at <big consumer tech> we did “market research” and we basically came to the conclusion that apple is probably waiting to see reactions to pixel tablet dock to decide if it should be an iPad first or HomePod first.

What's interesting is that even when Apple follows a design or trend, their fans can often claim that Apple innovates it at the same time. For example, Android has had wireless charging and USB-C ages before Apple, but when Apple started to use them, their fans said something along the lines of 'Apple refined and innovated on the prototype concept, and are first to deliver a working, solid product', despite the Android ones working... fine?

I wonder if we'll see the same with these docks.

Apple still isn’t using USB-C for phone charging. How good are the MagSafe equivalents in android land?

I'm not currently in the apple ecosystem at all, but am a long-time apple product user and have been on a first-name basis with hundreds of iPhone users since they came out. 100% of the awful statements and stances towards the android ecosystem or any of its constituents I've seen attributed to "apple fans" have come from people mad at apple and apple users. Zero percent– really— have I heard from actual Apple users.

One of the big selling points of iPhones is that if you have a phone released within 3 or 4 years, you don't have to think about the capabilities of your phone. At all. I'm not saying they're objectively better, it's just geared towards users who want their phone to get out of the way and do it's thing, and that's fine. If there's a trove of apple users somewhere that have strong opinions about Android phones, I've never encountered them.

I'll never understand why some people get so wrapped around the axle about phones.

>If there's a trove of apple users somewhere that have strong opinions about Android phones

Is using /r/apple cheating? ;)

To be clear, I envy Apple's long-term support for their products and no one can deny the fantastic build quality. I know that MacBooks can occasionally get some dislike here, but I genuinely really like the few I have, aside from my butterfly keyboard one, which is the odd child of the bunch.

The earliest occurrence of this that I can remember is when the iPhone X introduced OLED displays, back when the burn in occurred much faster. People were swearing up and down that Apple's OLED would be of a higher standard and wouldn't burn it in at all (not an exaggeration), not like those pesky Samsung phones!

I don’t think /r/apple is representative of the general population any more than any other fan subreddit. The median apple customer bought their device and didn’t think about it as long as it continued working. Meanwhile that subreddit draws who make apple a part of their identity.

To be fair until the iPod the Apple base had a decent proportion of committed Cupertino cultists. At this stage that's an ancient historical anomaly. They still exist as a tiny fraction of the actual customer base nowadays, but the external critique is still trapped in a time warp.

While I don't think online fan communities represent anything except weird online behavior, it doesn't even matter. Go to /r/Apple and look for people specifically proclaiming the superiority of iphones over android devices. Surely, there are some, but even in there, the vast majority of users just don't give a shit. However, if a search results point me to reddit when looking up something up about my Samsung phone, you'd think it was a Red Sox VS. Yankees rivalry. It's a one-sided rivalry between two user bases. It's bizarre. It's a phone. It's someone else's phone.

I have only heard that in reference to MagSafe, which does solve the problem of misaligning the charging coils and is more efficient than Android charging.

Not invalidating your experience, but I've never seen anyone try and say this about Apple and wireless charging. You're just inventing bogeymen when you theorise that people are going to claim apple is so smart when they do better USB-C on iPhone.

What's great with charging docks? I charge with several chargers hanging from sockets all around the house. If I had only a charging dock I would have either to carry it were I need to charge my tablet while I'm using it or move myself to the dock.

I agree the dock as the only way to charge seems daft, but I suppose they expect everyone to have a USB-C charging cable for their phone already, and use that on the go. Most Android phone owners will, and I suppose this is aimed at them.

Both aren't mutually exclusive.

"Charging via Charging Speaker Dock (included) or USB-C® charger (sold separately)"

Because I only charge at night since a single charge gets me through the day.

And it's just so much easier to set a tablet down to charge than to grab the cord when it fell down the back of the desk/table/whatever, and then find exactly where the tiny charging port in the middle of a long edge is. Or just to lift up rather than carefully unplugging first, and leaving a messy cable behind that's easy to knock off of its surface (or build a system to carefully clip it somewhere).

And a dock isn't taking away the port. It's just a nice option.

I would like to use my tablet while it is charging. This seems like a very basic requisite?

Apple used to know how to do this:

The Apple Macintosh PowerBook Duo Dock turns a PowerBook Duo into a full-featured desktop Macintosh including a 1.44 MB floppy disk drive, a complete set of desktop ports, and NuBus slots as well as the options of a secondary 230 MB hard drive and a 68882 FPU to improve performance.

The Duo Dock is compatible with all of the grayscale PowerBook Duos (210, 230, 250, 280), but can also support the color Duos (270c, 280c, 2300c/100) with a replacement lid.

https://everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook_duo/specs/mac_p...

Someone needs to figure out medium range charging and sell a unit to every home, coffee shop, airport, airplane, etc. Let us never be powerless or tethered or docked again!

Didnt the first ipods come with charging docs?

charging docks are cool, but they're a little inconvenient for traveling and portable needs

It can be charged via usb-c.

> Can the Pixel Tablet charge with a regular USB-C® cord? > Yes, in addition to charging your Pixel Tablet with the Charging Speaker Dock, you will also be able to charge your Pixel Tablet with a USB-C® cord.1

Are charging docks not a way to avoid EU regulations around standardizing/unbundling charging cables?

Charging Dock is one option you can charge using USB-C also.

You have to include USB-C charging but that doesn't mean you can't use other charging methods (like the new Macbooks that have magsafe and USB-C)

Wireless charging kills batteries faster -- that's why I personally avoid it.

How so?

Mostly the extra heat degrades the battery chemistry

Perhaps this is an issue with a particular charger? I've yet to notice my phone get warm when charging wirelessly.

The best wireless chargers I'm aware of are the magsafe ones which align the coils using magnets, improving efficiency and reducing heat.

Can you expand on this because I've noticed that my iPhone 13 mini's battery life has been quickly getting worse, and I use the magsafe charging a lot.

It's the heat generated with wireless charging which kills the battery, not the charging speed

Open the battery page in the settings and look at what % it has left. At 80% Apple suggests replacing it.

Wireless is usually a lot slower than plugging it in, so i suspect it'd be better on batteries rather than worse.

But the best way to save your batteries is to not charge to 100%.

I wish there were standard software in Android and iOS to limit charge percentage and battery temperature during charging.

It's ludicrous to me that the default behavior is plugging in your phone to a 30W ludicrously fast charger when you go to bed in the evening, where it then climbs to 100% charge and holds there while you sleep.

I should be able to tell it I'd like it to reach 85% charge as of the time my alarm goes off in the morning, timing that in a way that minimizes battery heating. My laptop, likewise, should be able to sit at 85% when on the docking station, potentially even syncing with my calendar to know when I have to leave and might need more battery or a more rapid charge before a meeting.

> It's ludicrous to me that the default behavior is plugging in your phone to a 30W ludicrously fast charger when you go to bed in the evening, where it then climbs to 100% charge and holds there while you sleep.

Apple already does something similar. It's not configurable beyond on/off but optimized battery charging on MBP, iPhone, and iWatch learns when you're normally awake and holds charging at ~80% overnight until a bit before your normal wakeup time. On MBP it holds at 80% most of the time during the day too if it learns you're rarely running on battery.

On Android this is called Adaptive Charging and has been on my Pixels for several years at this point.

> ludicrously fast charger when you go to bed in the evening

This is why I never charge overnight. Just pop the phone on to charge while I'm having a shower in the morning, or in the evening while I'm having dinner. Those time windows seem enough to keep my phone (Pixel 5) sufficiently charged.

> My laptop, likewise, should be able to sit at 85% when on the docking station

Samsung laptops have/had this exact feature, which they called Battery Life Plus[1]

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20140101070825/https://www.samsu...

>I wish there were standard software in Android and iOS to limit charge percentage and battery temperature during charging.

Apple has this already, android implementations are more fragmented (not just due to manufacturer but due to charge standard, pmic used, and battery subtypes used). LineageOS has a standard feature they've been working on to provide for charge thresholds but it's not in official builds yet (it's good on the devices I've used it though).

Honestly limiting current is probably bad with modern low resistance cells as temperature is elevated longer. Better to get them saturation charge quickly and stop charging unless you need the extra capacity. Also better to use a low voltage charge standard that doesn't need to drop the voltage in the phone.

All modern major manufacturers throttle the charge current if it breaks thermal limits and have a hard cutoff over a certain value (and down also if it's near or below freezing temps)

Is that the default behavior on iOS? I'm not familiar with the details, but I thought there was logic for optimizing charging, IIRC so that it charges quickly to 80% but then slowly to 100%. And once it hits 100%, it's not like it's constantly drawing power to maintain that level.

You are correct, that's "optimized charging" setting, and it is on by default (but if one is inclined to turn it off for some reason, they can do it in settings).

The Pixel line has adaptive charging, which is active when you have an alarm set, and times the phone to be fully charged by the time the alarm goes off. It's unfortunate this does not seem to be a default behavior for stock Android.

I've had Pixel phones for a while now and I just thought that was a standard Android thing.

It took me a while to learn that I should set a one-shot alarm before I put my phone on the charger.

This feature was not very discoverable, so I also wonder how much unnecessary wear and tear I put on my phone from having rapid charges at bed time before I discovered how to summon the adaptive charge cycle.

samsung phones let you do this exactly.

My Motorola Android (Edge+, Android 12) will charge up to 80% when I plug it in at night and then back-mark against the morning alarm so that it is just getting to 100% when the alarm fires.

Asus Zenfone 9 does the same.

Tbh I don't think its worth even thinking about battery life preservation on phones. The battery can be replaced so cheaply that it makes years of charging anxiety not worth it for a few months longer lifespan.

But the inconvenience of replacing them yourself outweighs the benefit of restoring their battery for many people without much experience. I miss replaceable batteries

But you're usually going to have to replace it anyways if you have your phone for long enough.

Does it usually really matter if you have to replace it after 28 months versus after 32 months? The chance that you'll sell/lose/break your phone in that small window just doesn't seem worth worrying about.

I just take it in to the store, go get something to eat, then pick it up again.

Samsung routines can do exactly this. You can customize it to only charge up to 85% (though no way to set 80% or 90% or something) and then have it not charge until two hours before your alarm, either fast charge or slow charge.

This is why you should keep a non-fast charger next to the bed. Something that can only ever do 5V. If you need to charge quickly, plug in somewhere else.

I have a dell XPS laptop where thia feature is configurable in the BIOS

Is there some way to quickly override it so you get 100% charge ASAP? Or do you have to go into the bios and mess about?

> I should be able to tell it I'd like it to reach 85% charge as of the time my alarm goes off in the morning, timing that in a way that minimizes battery heating.

Isn't this precisely what adaptive charging does?

Pixel devices do this if you have an alarm set. Despite having a Pixel device, this doesn't work for me because I use a separate alarm clock (a daylight one). Instead, I just have an old, slow charger beside my bed.

In that case why not use an old charger that only outputs 5V 1A?

Do you have a source? I thought this has been thoroughly debunked.

> thoroughly debunked.

I wish people would stop using this phrase.

Especially when they couldn't be more wrong.

Heat degrades batteries, wireless charging generally comes with more heat from the lower efficiency.

But at the end of the day it most likely won't matter as people get new phones every few years anyways.

There are so many more factors than heat though

For one, I thought charging slower was better, so could the increased heat be offset by that? Also, it's more heat per joule transferred, but over a longer period of time, is that not better than sudden heat from fast charging?

Heat is the primary factor, and even with fast charging the inefficiencies of wireless charging will mean the latter will dump more heat into your phone.

The constant current phase of fast charging does not generate much heat in comparison at given wattage as it's able to charge up your phone much more quickly at higher efficiency until it switches to trickle charging at ~80%.

But fast charging makes batteries very hot too.

Btw, you basically just asked people to know when they are wrong. Seems very optimistic...

Where did I say fast charging doesn't make batteries hot? I've built LiPo packs from scratch and rebalanced cells manually, I know something about LiPo degradation.

So I'm confused, what are you saying: fast charging is making batteries hotter, or wireless charging is making them hotter?

I'm genuinely curious but you don't give details or you simply answer with a question...

Any type of charging generates heat.

At any wattage, wireless charging at 70% efficiency will always generate more heat than fast charging at 95% efficiency.

If you want to compare 5w wireless charging to 100w fast charging, even then it's not obvious the wireless charging is better, because it will still thermal throttle and stay throttled for longer, at least a few hours. Meanwhile fast charging will charge it to 80% state of charge in half an hour and then trickle charge to full.

The notion that this is somehow "debunked" is just against physics.

https://www.androidauthority.com/100w-wired-vs-wireless-char...

Well I don’t know, if people tested and don’t see any difference, wouldn’t that count as “debunked”?

A quick internet research shows the Internet consensus is, wireless charging does not degrade batteries faster. At least it seems there is no empirical data proving otherwise, which at the very least would indicate the difference is small, if any.

I think until I see (good) empirical data proving either of the theories I’m going to stay skeptical.

The more heat lithium ion batteries are subject to, the more they degrade.

For any given wattage, wireless charging will always generate more heat.

It really isn't more difficult than that. You don't need to be skeptical about physics.

I've already addressed in my first post the differences are likely marginal, as people get new phones within a few years anyways. Doesn't mean additional degradation didn't happen.

I give up. I'm curious, you are clearly not.

Why does everyone seem to disagree with you?

Does the fact that the copper coil get hot instead of the battery itself have any influence?

Do you have empirical data?

Etc. Etc. Just some examples, from the top of my mind...

When one is curious they tend to find the answer out themselves.

Copper coil in phones are next to the battery, it's going to heat up the cells.

I've already sent you one link and you've not acknowledged it. Good luck in your epistemic endeavors.

Page 1 of Google seems to suggest the contrary. Source?

The dock seems to be magsafe style contacts not wireless

This isn’t wireless, it’s basically pogo pins. It’s magnetically aligned/held, but that’s all.

It’s just my impression, but, to me we humans seem to instinctively avoid retuning a tool to where it have been found, likely to avoid allowing adversaries inspect it. We however tend to build a routine, and leaving objects to a key tray is okay so long the actions to pick up and returning mentally differs.

What I’m saying is, I personally like the idea of cradles, but I seem to be a minority. Cables seem to be a more generally preferred solution.

It's quite fascinating. Apple ships their tablet with a stylus, while Google ships theirs with a charger-speaker-dock.

Apple is saying "this is for the creatives" while Google is saying "this is a home console".

"Apple ships their tablet with a stylus"

Huh?

Yikes, I was under the impression that it was included in the $449. Nope, gotta drop another $100.

My point stands: Apple has pen as primary accessory, Google has dock.

I mean, Galaxy Note has a pen but iPhone does not. Does that mean Samsung is for creatives but Apple is not? :->

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed your theory, the thinking and rationale :). But given the pen is a whopping 100$ for Apple, not sure if it's as simple as that.

Apple made or tried to make the operating system useful enough to use productively with a stylus and keyboard. Google has not yet.

Remember the original iPad was very much NOT a keyboard/stylus device. Google is a few years behind, but fwiw their device supports Bluetooth keyboards and styluses they just don’t make a first party one.

Android has supported keyboards and mice pretty much forever, I think.

Uh, Pixel C? Google did the magnetically attached keyboard that turns it most of the way into a laptop long before Apple did. And the keyboard part worked great.

I think Google is trying to compete with Amazon Echo Show for this device, not with Apple iPad.

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