Apple Officially Cancels AirPower

[omihek]

Wow failing at making hardware. Tim Apple better come up with some new services fast.

They are already in the pipeline, and they are the best services we've ever had. We think you're going to love them.

 

[psac]

Time to sell my AAPL stock.

(No, not really.)

 

[toke lahti]

What if the price-quality-ratio of qi-mats have evolved in 2 years, that almost nobody would have bought apple’s mat with a regular apple tax price level?
Or just apple didn’t have money to solve some engineering problem?
Hard to choose...

 

[genovelle]

I guess Apple could have released it in beta form and just cancel it if it didn’t work out, like some competitors do.

 

[dan9700]

Game over apple I didn't buy wireless airpods for any wireless charger this is beyond lame

 

[Karllake]

Major tech firm attempts a new product, product doesn’t fully work as intended, development is stopped. The only possible criticism here is the fact they did it in public... This is a complete non story to me.

 

[matt_and_187_like_this]

The point is why were they having too many problems when other manufactures haven't! There are plenty of wireless charges out now. Did they not have the expertise to do this? Is there something inherently concerning about wireless charging that they don't want the liability? (Exploding over-heating) Could they not make it affordable? Did they learn they shouldn't be announcing products until they have a clear view of the viability? I could just go on and on and on.[/QU

As far as I understood correctly, they wanted the mat to charge your device anywhere you placed it. Current mats have designated spots for charging.

 

[DaveRivera]

The point is why were they having too many problems when other manufactures haven't! There are plenty of wireless charges out now. Did they not have the expertise to do this? Is there something inherently concerning about wireless charging that they don't want the liability? (Exploding over-heating) Could they not make it affordable? Did they learn they shouldn't be announcing products until they have a clear view of the viability? I could just go on and on and on.

There are no chargers out right now that can do what apple said the AirPower would do. None. They obviously had issues with making it do that.

 

[lyngo]

They certainly announced this at the right time on a Friday from a public relations move point of view. Now, some of the backlash will blow over this weekend.

 

[52485]

must've been a real bitch from a technical point of view. youd never know looking at such a simple design

 

[cube]

There are no chargers out right now that can do what apple said the AirPower would do. None. They obviously had issues with making it do that.

What was special about it?

 

[rikscha]

Where is it official. Source please.
TechCrunch is not linking or screenshotting at least its source.
Suspiciously close to April’s fools day. May have posted this prematurely

 

[ipedro]

LOL... what the hell is going on over there? Let's make a bunch of wireless products and leave it up to third parties to figure out how to charge them.

Let’s not be disingenuous. Of course Apple is capable of producing a standard Qi charger that any third rate Chinese factory can make for pennies.

What they tried to do was something that has turned out to be physically impossible. They tried. They did the right thing in cancelling it when it became clear that they wouldn’t achieve their goals.

Hopefully they go back in the quiet of no looming deadline and continue working on the problem.

 

[Trik]

Then return them.

Sure, that is fair, just annoying.

 

[JPack]

Not to get all conspiracy theorist on this, but TechCrunch is the only news outlet reporting this and they are reporting that Apple made the announcement through email sent to THEM. That seems like a really strange way for Apple to announce this.

The statement from Apple has been sent to Bloomberg, CNBC, and countless others. Everyone is reporting it.

 

[pipis2010]

Apple today canceled AirPower, the charging mat that it first announced in 2017, because of an inability to meet its high standards for hardware, reports TechCrunch.

AirPower was designed to charge the Apple Watch, iPhone, and AirPods all at once, but after Apple announced the device in 2017, there were persistent rumors of difficulties and no product ever launched. Apple says work on the product has been canceled entirely because the company has been unable to achieve what it was aiming for with the AirPower.

"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 in a statement provided to TechCrunch.

AirPower was introduced in September 2017 alongside the iPhone X, and at the time, Apple said it would launch in 2018. 2018 came and went with no sign of AirPower and no word from Apple on when it would materialize.

There were, however, continual rumors of production, engineering, and manufacturing difficulties. Rumors suggested that there were problems with heat management, inter-device communication, and interference because Apple wanted to design a charging device where you could put an iPhone, Apple Watch, or AirPods anywhere on the mat to charge.

This required layering multiple charging coils, resulting in a device that ran too hot, which turned out to be an engineering issue Apple couldn't solve.

AirPower was supposed to work with the Wireless Charging Case for the AirPods that was released last week, and it was also meant to charge Apple Watch Series 3 and 4 models and all iPhones that support Qi-based wireless charging. With Apple having released the AirPods Charging Case just recently, there was speculation that an AirPower launch was imminent.

The cancelation of AirPower comes as a shock as there have been continual signs that the product was still in the works. AirPower mentions were still included on the newly launched AirPods Charging Case, and Apple recently secured a trademark for the AirPower name. There have also been ongoing rumors of a spring launch, so it appears that Apple worked for months on AirPower solutions before ultimately deciding to nix the project.

Ending work on a project that was already announced and shown off is unprecedented in Apple's recent history.

Article Link: Apple Officially Cancels AirPower

Next in line, the modular Mac Pro to be also cancelled or delayed for a couple of years ))))))

 

[cardfan]

This was something I was never buying anyways. Dumb product from the start. However this doesn’t mean they can’t do simpler ones. I suppose tv streaming won out over this and many other better things.

 

[PSCConMP]

The AirPower engineers are now free to go on vacation with the MacPro engineers, who have been on vacation for six years. Is the MacPro going to be the next vaporware?

 

[Kram Sacul]

Good.... it wasn’t real wireless charging anyways.

Finally an intellectual comment.

 

[DotCom2]

There are no chargers out right now that can do what apple said the AirPower would do. None. They obviously had issues with making it do that.

Then why announce it until they had a clear view of its viability?

 

[TVreporter]

Rest In Peace AirPower, we hardly knew thee

 

[Rob_2811]

Give Apple credit, they pulled the plug on a product they could not produce to their satisfaction. That is much better than throwing good money after bad. Though the concept of the AirPower sounds very interesting, Apple cannot produced to their specs it is smart they stopped it; much business sense. Before bashing Apple look at other companies that have dropped products, think GM, Ford, Chrysler, Motorola, the list goes on. Then there are companies with too much hubris not to let go of doomed products then they lose tons of money; remember the saying “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”

They announced a product before they even knew that they could make it work and you think they deserve a pat on the back for accepting that they can't 18 months on?

 

[archer75]

The point is why were they having too many problems when other manufactures haven't! There are plenty of wireless charges out now. Did they not have the expertise to do this? Is there something inherently concerning about wireless charging that they don't want the liability? (Exploding over-heating) Could they not make it affordable? Did they learn they shouldn't be announcing products until they have a clear view of the viability? I could just go on and on and on.

There's clearly more to this than other generic wireless charging devices. Making another generic cheap product in a sea of them just isn't worth it. While those that manufacturer the cheaper ones that run hot and don't last long are ok with that apple isn't.

But yeah, that shouldn't have announced it so far in advance. That was foolish.

 

[Ghost31]

$250 billion dolllars or whatever it’s up to nowadays and they can’t even make a wireless charging mat, lol.

I’ll be picking this up at some point. Charges Apple Watch, AirPods, and iPhone all wirelessly at the same time. And unlike AirPower you don’t have to remove your loop strap to charge the Watch: https://hellonomad.com/products/base-station-apple-watch

So much for Apple creating a truly wireless AirPower someday when they can’t even get this right.

Thanks for the link. And at the price people were speculating AirPower would be and saying “it’s too expensive” too! I’ll probably go ahead and grab a couple of these babies for the house. Still glad I got my wireless charging AirPods. Totally worth it and my purchase wasn’t depending on AirPower like some people’s

 

[Andyvydna]

This was as bad as brexit, glad at least one is over...

At least Apple realised that AirPower couldn’t be safely delivered after announcing it.

If only Tim Cook was in charge of Brexit…