Apple Officially Cancels AirPower Wireless Charging Mat

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Posted March 29, 2019 at 7:58pm by Shalom Levytam

Apple has officially cancelled its AirPower wireless charging mat ending months of speculation on its release.

The company emailed the following statement to TechCrunch today:

“After much effort, we’ve concluded AirPower will not achieve our high standards and we have cancelled the project. We apologize to those customers who were looking forward to this launch. We continue to believe that the future is wireless and are committed to push the wireless experience forward,” said Dan Riccio, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Engineering.

The AirPower wireless charging mat was first announced in September of 2017. Numerous reports indicated that the project would be cancelled or delayed due to overheating issues.

Everything I’ve personally heard (Apple is saying nothing officially) about the AirPower delay has been related to tough engineering problems related to the laws of physics. 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.

It's likely that Apple pulled the plug on AirPower recently as the new AirPods have a picture of the wireless charging mat on their packaging. It's disappointing news for customers who were anticipating the device; however, there are alternatives that will let you charge three devices. For example, the Bestand 3 in 1 Aluminum Wireless Charging Stand or the Unravel Triple Charging Station.

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Apple Officially Cancels AirPower Wireless Charging Mat

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marc767 - April 1, 2019 at 4:27pm

Don’t make announcements you can’t follow up on. The fingerprint should have been kept though in addition face detection. Try opening that from a bedside position with 90% of your face in the pillow.

marcel.ursaciuc - April 1, 2019 at 1:16pm

I am using an iPhone XS with wireless charging and the position on the charger must be centered, otherwise it's not charging. It is hard to make such a device that ignores the position on the coils.

ichild - March 30, 2019 at 8:03pm

Apple will eventually have something down the road. When they do it, it works the way it should. I've been there many times where companies say this and then it never works the way it should. Nobody got anything blown up in their faces or tables so this is a win, not a loss.

Ace* - March 30, 2019 at 3:28pm

One proof that Apple is no longer even close to being a leader in innovation. They actually gave up because their research and development team failed. They’ll just have to wait for Samsung or another company to design a successful charging mat which they can then copy a few years down the road.

D4xM4Nx - March 30, 2019 at 3:33am

I like Apple being honest and upfront about issues they encountered during the AirPower development. It’s much better a cancelled project, than a half-baked release *cough* Samsung *cough* 😂😂.