Apple Exploring Wireless Charging for iPhone as Early as 2013?

Vegasman said:

Having wireless charging on my phone, I can say it is much like keyless entry for my car. It seems totally pointless... until you use it. I mean, really, is it that much work to press the little button on your keyfob to unlock the doors? It turns out the answer is yes. My next car will have it. And the one after that too.

Same goes with wireless charging.

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So true. The first time I bought keyless entry for a car it was solely to because to access the trunk while the top was down (convertible). I thought the keyless part was only for the lazy, but I wanted to be able to put stuff in the trunk w/o having to put the top completely up. Ironically, that feature only worked some of the time, but being able to open the door w/o having to dig in my pockets...can't live w/o it now.

ConCat said:

It's isn't quite like that. There's already tech out there that you can purchase, it's just extremely expensive and not meant for average consumers.

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Right, "just extremely expensive and not meant for average consumers." Read your post again and see how silly you sound when you apply it to a $199 phone. The iPhone is a mainstream consumer product, not a Ferrari. Affordable wireless electricity is years off. Inductive charging is here now and improving. It is an intermediary technology, much like B&W TV or DVD-R was in the late 90s and early 00's when Flash drives and cards were in their infancy.

I still need a wire attached to my wireless charger in order for it to work, don't I?

szw-mapple fan said:

If they were going wireless, why bother switching to lightning? It makes no sense.

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Lightning was required to get iDevices' thickness down, or so Apple says.

Chupa Chupa said:

Right, "just extremely expensive and not meant for average consumers." Read your post again and see how silly you sound when you apply it to a $199 phone. The iPhone is a mainstream consumer product, not a Ferrari. Affordable wireless electricity is years off. Inductive charging is here now and improving. It is an intermediary technology, much like B&W TV or DVD-R was in the late 90s and early 00's when Flash drives and cards were in their infancy.

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What I meant is that it isn't that far off. It's already here and functional, it just isn't something your everyday consumer can get his hands on. Many of the major automotive manufacturers are already actively researching the tech, and I suspect that cars are going to be the first place this tech ends up.

sshhoott said:

I already have enough dose of electromagnetic radiation by browsing MacRumours all day. Don't want more.

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Well, if that's how you feel about EM radiation just go outside, bask in the sun and listen to the radio.

Better late then never I guess Apple, although I don't know what they need to develop as they can copy Nokia or Palm or Samsung already, no scratch that, Apple will copy them then patent it then sue everyone....

Vegasman said:

Having wireless charging on my phone, I can say it is much like keyless entry for my car. It seems totally pointless... until you use it. I mean, really, is it that much work to press the little button on your keyfob to unlock the doors? It turns out the answer is yes. My next car will have it. And the one after that too.

Same goes with wireless charging.

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such a great analogy.

I just swap my Note 2 battery every morning. It takes 3 seconds to get my case off, 2 seconds to remove the cheap plastic battery cover (lol), another 3 seconds to swap the battery, do everything in reverse and boom; 100% charge in 1 minute lasting at least 24 hours. No docks, cables or inconvenience during a typical day.
Samsung better use cheap plastic with removable battery doors with SD cards in the S4 and Note 3 or else I will be very upset.

I would be surprised to see this materialize especially after Phil Schiller argued against the need for one. He was right though, wireless charging seems pointless, especially considering you still have to plug the charging mat, or orb in. Why not just plug the phone in, instead.

Ice-Cube said:

If one day they develop wireless charging like WIFI, that would be superb. Imagine the phone being charged at different hotspots while on the move, we won't need a longer battery life anymore.

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Hmm. This would be ideal. But wifi takes power so the phone would need to have enough power to do this. But if it needs to be charged, it must mean it's low on power. But maybe it could utilize some of the incoming charge to power the wifi, but this would make charging slower. Oh my God, is this a conundrum?

WIFI charging would be great, though.

If it's nonconnected wireless charging then fine. Sounds like a good idea. What I mean by non connected is being able to be in the vicinity of a charger but not connected to it so that you're able to use the phone while charging it.

Otherwise, it's just yet another technology that Apple is behind on.

sconnor99 said:

Why on earth does anyone care about wireless charging?

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When I travel with the family, we bring:

4 Iphones/Ipods
3 Ipads

Can you imagine what I need to to do to pack all the chargers and what not for all of these?

Wireless charging would be a godsend.

ConCat said:

What I meant is that it isn't that far off. It's already here and functional, it just isn't something your everyday consumer can get his hands on. Many of the major automotive manufacturers are already actively researching the tech, and I suspect that cars are going to be the first place this tech ends up.

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Right, but again, color TV existed in the early 1950s. It wasn't brought to the mainstream until the mid 60s. Similarly now-ubiquitous Flash memory existed in the 80s, but wasn't feasible for consumer use until the 00s. Recall, even the earliest MP3 players with just 32 and 64MB of storage were still rather expensive given their ability to only store a couple albums.

I understand wireless electricity exists, and that we might even see it come to widespread consumer products by the end of the century, but it's not going to be affordable in the next couple of years at the earliest, and I also doubt Apple would be the first to jump on it.

In the meantime, like always, there is the intermediary technology... the thing that "warms" consumers up to the truly next big thing. That's inductive charging.

Fresh Pie said:

Apple, give us what we really want: an upgraded, more expensive version of Lightning! Every adaptor cable should be at least dual core.

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Is this a joke? I don't get it.

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Klae17 said:

You guys complain about everything. If you don't like it don't get it. But don't cry about Apple lacking innovation when they don't do something you don't like but will end up buying anyways.

Annoying as hell and getting tired of it. Go on another site if you don't like what Apple is doing.

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Perhaps you should consider going to another forum if you don't like this one.

szw-mapple fan said:

If they were going wireless, why bother switching to lightning? It makes no sense.

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Lightning does a bit more then charging. Third party accessories to start with?

hogo said:

This would benefit a sealed waterproof watch. A phone, not so much...

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Or the iWatch? Then there's no need for a relatively bulky port in the side of the watch to allow it to charge.

Maybe this tech isn't for the iPhone at all.

tekno said:

Is this a joke? I don't get it.

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Might comes from this one https://www.macrumors.com/2013/03/01/apples-lightning-digital-av-adapter-is-a-full-fledged-computer/

Those cable are more complex these days

Conductive charging might work as well, but will need time to become mainstream.

For instance Apple could add the inductive plate in the foot of the iMAC, on top of the TimeCapsule, AirportExtreme and AppleTV.

Then your mobile devices and keyboard, mouse and trackpad might get the counter part. Whenever you don't use them you can lay them on one of the plates around the house.

An extra indepent charge-pad will be interesting to place at a location where you don't have any of the other devices at hand (for instance bedroom).

Do we need it, no. But I think it will be easier to use then connecting the cable.

When I work on the iMAC I can put my iPhone on the foot of the iMAC and it will charge. When I stop working at the iMAC I might put the keyboard, mouse or trackpad on it so it charges.

The cable you can still use to charge anywhere out of the house.

This is a useless feature. Still need to plug the base in and as stated, usb chargers are pretty much everywhere. The only stink apple should be making is how they

inlinevolvo said:

This is a useless feature. Still need to plug the base in and as stated, usb chargers are pretty much everywhere. The only stink apple should be making is how they

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Right, but you only need to plug it into the base ONCE, unlike now where you have to plug in to your device every time you want to charge then unplug when done. That is the difference. It's one less step. Isn't that a good thing?

Klae17 said:

You guys complain about everything. If you don't like it don't get it. But don't cry about Apple lacking innovation when they don't do something you don't like but will end up buying anyways.

Annoying as hell and getting tired of it. Go on another site if you don't like what Apple is doing.

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Relatively new here, are you? :-D

That said, I'd rather see too much whining than blind worship of Apple... (or any corporation for that matter).

NeilGoBlue said:

When I travel with the family, we bring:

4 Iphones/Ipods
3 Ipads

Can you imagine what I need to to do to pack all the chargers and what not for all of these?

Wireless charging would be a godsend.

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Yep, because then you'd only need to pack 7 wireless induction stations....right?

ConCat said:

Inductive charging is, to say the least, pointless because it requires the device to be tethered to something which is plugged in, why not just plug it directly into the phone?

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Having a charging pad permanently plugged in* at home, so every evening you just dump your phone on the pad doesn't sound pointless to me. The speed is irrelevant since it will typically be left charging overnight, and whenever you need to use the phone you just grab it.

Even if you occasionally use a regular cable for 'on the road' charging, this will probably reduce the wear and tear on the socket by 90%.

It would be a nice feature - but not necessarily a 'must have'.

(* if the charging pad instructions need to say 'unplug unit when not in use' then they've designed it wrong.)

I hope that Apple does NOT move to wireless charging. It is much less efficient than wired charging and will thus waste energy as well as polluting our environment more. I don't see any improvements from it. We don't need this.

What I would like to see Apple do is embed solar cells in the skins of all of their devices. Even in an office there is enough light energy to augment a laptop and a iPodTouch, iPad or iPhone could be fully powered or at least greatly extended by this technology. That would be useful.

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