Apple Applies for Patent on Wireless iPad Charging via Smart Cover

[mdelvecchio]

So it's simply an extended battery in a cover...

yeah -- it's simple. where's yours?

Lightning really seems like an expertly executed, ill-fated misstep.

not really. its so significantly smaller than the aging 30-pin, it's evolution was inevitable. i doubt there are many people plugging their iOS devices directly into their TVs vs using AirPlay, so the HD thing is not much of an issue. still waiting to see screenshots of the compression diff between lighting-HD and native HDMI tho.

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Seriously this is the next big thing?

where does it say that? you're commenting on a RUMOR.

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Someday soon, I hope we all see an Apple Press Conference where the only person on stage is Phil Schiller eating his words for an hour and a half. What a bozo. Down plays wireless charging and larger screen smartphones.

you must be new. if this is a true product (if), then can you say...."misdirection"? jobs did it all the time.

 

[thewinelake]

Pyropath's right and Mucrumors have the wrong end of the stick.

The second pic is the the cover underneath and the battery is symbolic of the battery in the iPad itself.

BTW - Just 'cos Apple applies for a patent, doesn't make them innovative - but it's an important first step!

 

[mdelvecchio]

Beside the obvious other problems, I wonder why one would use inductive coupling for transferring the energy from the cover to the iPad. They could easily make the contacts of the magnets be conductive and use a more solid copper connection for transferring the energy. Wastes much less energy.

i love all the armchair engineers. wheres your EE degree from and wheres your portfolio? patents?

 

[Thunderhawks]

How innovative!!!


That would give me about 5 minutes more of battery life.

Lol - damn cover wouldn't even stay on with that weight.

Seriously this is the next big thing?

Please don't hold back and provide us with something innovative you created

If you can't don't criticize companies or people who do.

 

[iGrip]

Pretty sure you can get 10W panels which would give you ~50% or more charge for a few hours of full sun

Like this one?

It is 14" x 11.5".

http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/BF...1W417&ef_id=UFh4tAAAQ4l3uBtR:20130314162507:s


Maybe this one? It is a "High-Efficiency Mono-Crystalline" cell:

http://www.instapark.com/solar-powe...iency-mono-crystalline-solar-power-panel.html

It is about the same size.

Samll ones that would fit on a tablet cover?

http://www.glassinchina.com/product/productDisplay_339947.html

Peak current: 100mA-
Peak voltage：5.5V
(Length)90*(Width)48*(Thickness)2.5mm
illumination intensity 1000W/M2，25，AM1.5，25 Output power error:±5%

I stand by my original statement. With today's solar cells, you would need to bake your iPad for hours in the direct sun to yield minutes worth of useage time.

Believe me when I say that I think solar cells are cool. I have considered getting a 30 Watt cell to take camping to recharge the cell phones. But it is FAR more practical to carry a miniature sealed lead/acid battery with you. Especially given that you will want to use your tablet most on rainy days, sitting under the rainfly, and not on sunny days.

 

[jrswizzle]

I've got an idea!

Let's all make ridiculous assumptions based on past/present technology about something that will come out in the future that none of us have any idea about!

If there was a way to make the smart cover even an extended battery, I'm all for it. It could help keep the iPad charged when closed or when folded back. And while plugged in, the induction would run backwards like another poster stated to charge both the iPad and the cover.....

OR

They could figure out a way to efficiently charge the smart cover with solar panels and transfer that power efficiently to the iPad and TRULY, wirelessly charge it....maybe not a substitute for a good old fashioned wall charge, but it could come in handy in a pinch.

I'm going to go ahead and say that, if/when implemented, this method will use technology we don't know/haven't thought about yet. Just a wild hunch....

 

[SmileyBlast!]

Someday soon, I hope we all see an Apple Press Conference where the only person on stage is Phil Schiller eating his words for an hour and a half. What a bozo. Down plays wireless charging and larger screen smartphones.

Maybe at concept stage, the legal team gets involved early and files the patent before suppliers and other big mouths can blab the concept to competitors.

Maybe Phil is speaking from experience gained after the concept is tried by users much later than the patent filing.

This could be why we see patents held by Apple for unpopular ideas.

 

[Mr. Gates]

Soooo....

What will the car charger look like ? Will I have to hook up a big old charging pad at the office to use this ? Will I now have to travel with a big ol' bulky charging pad ?

Apple ! - All we really want is the Mag-Safe connector for iPad. All this wireless charging nonsense is stupid. It's serves no point and does not solve a problem.

 

[dojoman]

How innovative!!!


That would give me about 5 minutes more of battery life.

Lol - damn cover wouldn't even stay on with that weight.

Seriously this is the next big thing?

Who said it's the next big thing? It's just a patent.

 

[charlituna]

.

The idea of wireless charging is that you just set your device down on a mat that is plugged in and it charges,

Which is part of why Schiller gave it a meh, you still have to have something plugged in. So what's the huge advantage of this over a cable you plug into the device

The mat is permanently plugged in .

Making it way less portable. Some of us don't work in an office with such options. For example, my 'office' is often a city block where I can't be tethered to a single spot to charge my iPad. This kind of cover is like a mophie for my ipad. But rather than their block is a plug in that could fall off, hitting the ground and ruining the shot by making noise etc, i can keep it secure with my hand or set it on any cart if I need my hands free for a few minutes. How is having that option a bad thing for those of us that might find it useful

 

[Oletros]

i love all the armchair engineers. wheres your EE degree from and wheres your portfolio? patents?

Ah, I suppose that you have a degree for any subject you write here, don't you?

 

[charlituna]

not really. its so significantly smaller than the aging 30-pin, it's evolution was inevitable.

Given that the pins were locked into one function only and you could blow a pin and lose the ability to charge, or sync, or get audio from a speaker dock etc, the dynamic pin assignment of the lighting plug is a godsend for many

 

[wildcardd]

I think the article misses the point.

Correct me if I am wrong, but the larger the coil, the faster and further distance it can be from the charging source. So by embedding the coil in the cover instead of the iPad, it can save the space required in the iPad and still be effective enough for charging.

You wouldn't plug the cover in.

 

[Mr. Retrofire]

Wanna be innovative? Incorporate solar cells into the display.

Invisible solar cells, like in the
Citizen Eco-Drive
watches.

 

[erzhik]

So basically an extended battery with wireless recharging capability. This is not wireless charging. It's wireless recharging if anything. The device still needs to be charged separately.

 

[Rodster]

Wouldn't this put unnecessary charge cycles on the battery if we were constantly charging the battery?

 

[rGiskard]

Cool!

I think the point here is that Apple is developing inductive charging tech in a serious way. This particular patent strikes me as a preemptive move to prevent third parties from making lame products that take advantage a feature Apple plans to introduce.

An inductive charging station for iDevices would be huge. Besides being convenient, it would be a feature that would reward family's for going all in on Apple products. A good inductive charging solution would be impossible with a mixed set of Android gadgets unless the different manufacturers agreed on a good standard (like that would ever happen).

At first Apple could offer a charging station and make all iDevices capable. When it would really take off is when automakers start building cars with iDevice compatible inductive chargers. Just set your phone in a cradle and drive! Completely wireless functionality of the iPhone in the place it's needed most.

 

[thewinelake]

I think the article misses the point.

Correct me if I am wrong, but the larger the coil, the faster and further distance it can be from the charging source. So by embedding the coil in the cover instead of the iPad, it can save the space required in the iPad and still be effective enough for charging.

You wouldn't plug the cover in.

Correct.
Please can someone from MacRumours correct their interpretation of the patent - it makes you (and a whole bunch of fanboys!) look stupid.

 

[TyPod]

Nice, sounds like a great idea!

 

[thewinelake]

While we're talking about patents, I was wondering if anyeone has ever patented my idea for inertial scrolling.

I'm not talking about what Apple call inertial scrolling (which is that you can whizz things up and down with swipes) but the notion of using a small display in conjunction with inertial detectors to give the effect of a big display...

...so you have (say) your iPhone on the desk and you slide it to the right. This makes the document in view slide to the left. It's like the whole desk was a display, but you could only see the bit where the iPhone screen was.

It might be a good way to read a document that was zoomed. I find that as I get older, my short-range vision isn't so good, so I have to hold the phone further away. This means that the writing gets too small. If I had this, I could read a book by sweeping my phone from left to right. While vertical and diagonal scrolling fit nicely into this model, my guess is that one might still swipe up and down as front/back or vertical freedom of motion is generally more constrained.

Now, if I could make a case that rollerballs connected to a generator, the side to side motion could also charge it up! ;-)

 

[notthedark]

Let me see if I understand this. Their going to use a cover that is "attached" to my iPad to boost re-charge the iPad but instead of using the attachment points to connect the boost battery their going to use an induction coil and because of this design it will only boost charge when I'm not using my iPad. So, my iPad can still go dead even though I have this big boost battery attached to it?

If the cover is already attached then use the attachment points to transfer energy. Less energy will be lost into the void than an induction circuit. And my iPad won't go dead unless the cover has also gone dead.

But, it get's better. In order to recharge the cover I have to connect it to a wired charger. What?

In other words there is nothing unconnected in this "wireless" charging configuration. Every component that is part of the "wireless" circuit is literally attached to the thing it is charging. So, why is it wireless?

 

[DudeDad]

I've never had an iPad run out of juice on me. I have a few external batteries (newtrent) that work fine. The last thing I need is a bulky, heavy cover, and to have to charge the cover as well.

 

[macsmurf]

Correct.
Please can someone from MacRumours correct their interpretation of the patent - it makes you (and a whole bunch of fanboys!) look stupid.

Have you read any of the claims in the patent? Such as the first two? You know, where the power line connected to the power transmitter in the cover is explicitly mentioned?

 

[RenoG]

Hows this innovation, wireless charging has been around for a while now

Are you serious right now? Its how its done, i.e. via ipad case. Who else wirelessly charge a tablet via slim case?

 

[ersatzplanet]

I cannot believe that no-one (including MacRumors) is able to understand a diagram, or a description.

This cover does not include a battery! You do not plug the cover into a power source!

The cover has an internal induction aerial to charge the iPad's internal battery. I.e. having a metal case the ipad cannot use an internal aerial to charge by induction, so it has to be placed outside the metal enclosure. The cover, being non-conductive, is a good place for the aerial to be. The aerial is foldable, to enable the cover to work as the current one does. The induction charging only takes place when the cover is closed over the screen.

I agree with you - nobody seems to also see that the iPad has the receiving coils built in so that means IT WILL WORK WITH A STANDARD CHARGING PAD. Apple can't patent the standard charging pad but can patent this. The upshot will be that you can either but the charging cover or probably also have a pad that you lay the iPad on (face down) to charge at night. With the receiver coils in the iPad it will work with BOTH systems.