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Comment by rmellow | Hacker News Reader

Magsafe is not wireless charging.

A Magsafe cable/port is a "trip safe" charging system, as the power cable is attached to the computer solely by magnets so that it will not break the port if yanked out at an angle.

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No, the article (and linked youtube) is about the magnets on an iphone (apparently also called magsafe, hence the "that magsafe" part of my comment). This, among other benefits, aligns the phone perfectly and thus alleviates wireless charging alignment issues.

Which at least 10 years ago used to be a big issue. Not sure how current iterations perform.

This magsafe wireless charging system is great, although you still have to make sure it actually starts charging because the magnets can align it incorrectly if the phone placement is too far off.

I’m not sure how this would happen, if your case fits the phone correctly. When I put a MagSafe case on my phone, I get an animation showing that it fit. Subsequent attachment of MagSafe components just need to align with the case, since the case is already aligned with the phone.

I’ve not had that happen ever. MagSafe manages to align the phone perfectly.

The magsafe cable/port you're talking about exists, and is on the current line of MacBook Pros.

However, the magsafe feature on iPhones is something completely different, it's the system where they have magnets in the back of the phone which can be used to attach various accessories, attach the phone to mounts, or guide the phone to rest correctly on wireless charging pads.

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