After getting through about half of this thread and thinking about how I used my old battery case, I’m starting to understand how Apple’s Magsafe battery pack functions differently than alternatives and what makes it unique.
I used to have a battery case for my iPhone that I would use on day trips where I know I’d be using my phone/camera a lot. I preferred to drain its battery before using my iPhone’s battery. There’s just some sense of security in keeping your phone’s battery high for as long as possible. And I didn’t mind having the case on my phone for most of the day because it didn’t add much bulk or weight and it wasn’t a daily situation. But when I left my battery case charging my phone indefinitely, trying to use up the battery case’s charge first, I noticed it wouldn’t deliver nearly as much charge overall as it would when I would charge up my phone then turn off the battery case. When left it on it seemed to waste charge somehow, maybe through heat, maybe through some other inefficiency. Note this case charged the phone via Lightning, not wireless.
It seems that with the Magsafe battery, probably through some hardware software integration, Apple figured out how to make a battery pack that would fulfill this function and not waste significant energy. It could stay attached to the phone throughout the day and efficiently use up the pack’s charge to its full potential while faithfully preserving the phone’s charge. This high efficiency also allowed the battery to be small and light which is important for this type of use case.
As far as whether Apple will make a new version, all this gives me three thoughts.
1) If Apple brings it back, it will likely not have much more battery capacity, since Apple will probably want to keep it small and light.
2) It’s possible that this use case/preference may be somewhat niche. Many may prefer just to use up the phone battery and then connect the battery to quickly recharge the phone, so that one could have a slimmer lighter phone for more of the day and one could have a bigger capacity battery (bigger heavier) which would provide more overall phone usage time. (Although in this case wireless battery charging makes a bit less sense than wired since inefficiency and heat loss will negate some battery capacity and require you to keep the battery attached and charging longer)
3) Someone mentioned somewhere that Apple may be hesitant to bring it back due to DMA concerns. If the efficiency of the Magsafe battery cannot technically be reproduced by competitors, then that may be a very major cause of Apple discontinuing it.
Edit-
Another thought comes to mind. Apple said that in order to stay focused, they only enter a product category if they feel they can deliver something with it that only they can, something unique. And that’s exactly what the DMA says is illegal.