Apple Officially Cancels AirPower

[realtuner]

New iPad hands-on? 15 comments.

Airpower cancelled? Almost 900 comments.

Nothing brings out the commenters like a bit of bad news about Apple.

 

[warp9]

Physics tends to disagree

Room-sized 100w+ wireless charging has been functional in research labs for years. I can only assume logistics and costs are keeping it from the market.

 

[PickUrPoison]

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

Finally an intellectual comment.

Hardly. So tired of people claiming inductive charging isn’t “real wireless”.

Please explain why you think that the air gap has to be greater than an inch or so in order to be considered “real wireless”. What about 6 inches? 6 feet? 6 miles?

If there are no wires connecting the transmitter and receiver, it’s wireless. Real wireless. True wireless. 100% wireless.

 

[jamezr]

Wow...how hard could it be to make this thing? It's another clue that Apple is moving away from hardware more and more and concentrating on services.

 

[Heineken]

Room-sized 100w+ wireless charging has been functional in research labs for years. I can only assume logistics and costs are keeping it from the market.

Does not mean it is a viable consumer level product. I think we have plenty of electromagnetic fields in our lives to begin with.

 

[pweicks]

One of the few battles that Apple’s hardware team has lost...

 

[DevNull0]

One of the few battles that Apple’s hardware team has lost...

That and the butterfly keyboard, fitting a battering into an iphone 6 or 7. Building a mac pro.

 

[Scooz]

Heh, Hot Air Power. Well, sometimes things just won’t work out.

Still, failure is a part of R&D. Announcing unfinished products is not. This was just bad marketing work.

 

[koifish22]

They never should have announced this product.

 

[dynAdZ]

I’m sure that decission has needed a lot of „courage“.

 

[albebaubles]

It isn't Timmy who needs to go, it's Philly. Head of marketing he had to green light the announcement of this fiasco and everything else they preannounce -- can't do his job, my ass!?!?!

 

[0947347]

Apple is starting to resemble to Google!
Except Google actually ships them at least but then cancels them.

Would prefer having it canceled rather than, let’s say, house on fire from faulty device

 

[apolloa]

Haha haha that’ll teach them, I hope it knocked the share price down too!!

DON’T show off to the world products that are no where near launch ready!

Also I’m guessing that the Apple Watch will not charge on a Qi standard charger? If it does great, if it doesn’t then anyone who bought an Apple Watch 3 or 4 has wasted money on tech Apple put in there thar you’ll never be able to use thanks to Apple!!!

Over promised under delivered.

 

[theluggage]

Shame to see them pull the plug on this.

Yeah - this product could have been hot stuff - and some people were really wired about it. This doesn't induce much confidence in Apple.

 

[vmac556]

these clowns cant even make a charging pad?

 

[burtba]

I call BS. I mean, APPLE, can't make a charger?......Give me a break. I reckon they realised there are many on the market they can't compete with and the watch charging was always going to be crap because depending on which band you use, you can't lay your watch flat to be charged without removing one end of the band and no one wants to do that.

 

[DevNull0]

Poor compared to a $4000 set of audiophile headphones maybe. The definition of "poor" is clearly a moving, personal definition.

Poor compared to $80 Bose or B&O wired buds. Slightly poor compared to $20 wired Marley's. On par with the $10 wired bargain pile at best buy.

 

[warp9]

Hardly. So tired of people claiming inductive charging isn’t “true wireless”.

A charging mat is functionally identical to a wired connection. The only difference is a slight convenience boost in not having to plug it in. Imagine your laptop was advertised with "wireless internet" but only if you kept it on top of the router.

 

[symphony]

You know there’s tons of other qi chargers?

Obviously. But I haven’t seen one that’s elegant enough to charge all three of my devices. Buying individual chargers looks bad and looks like a cluster****.

Since I intended it to sit on my nightstand, I want it to match aesthetically with the rest of my home. Other Qi chargers don’t charge with an Apple Watch, unless you have one that has an Apple Watch charger built in, but I’ve yet to find a product that looks modern or minimalistic.

 

[sinsin07]

This is absolutely crushing. I was refreshing the Apple store hoping to catch when they go on sale, and then Apple drops the news. This completely ruins my weekend for me, if not the entire month. But imagine how Apple engineers feel.. they worked long and hard, in the end it wasn't good enough. As bad as we all feel now, there are hundreds of people at Apple who feel worse. Thanks for trying guys, keep at it.

And to the trolls who say "Apple can't make a wireless charging mat, but competitors can" -- the difference is that Apple actually adheres to safety standards. Unlike a certain company famous for making exploding phones, Apple does not release crap. If you're planning on buying a wireless charging mat from anyone, you had better think twice.

I'll leave it here:
Remember these failed Apple products? They were some of the tech giant's biggest flops
The biggest gate since Watergate: Antenna Gate
You're holding it wrong
And then there was Bendgate, Throttlegate etc..
Let's throw in some MobileMe while were at it.

 

[PickUrPoison]

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.

You don’t understand what Apple was trying to do with AirPower. Nobody has been able to do it. Apple thought they had it. They didn’t.

It was a “charge anywhere” mat. Place three devices anywhere on the mat, not just in very specific spots. Not 3 isolated coils, 22 overlapping coils.

No one has done it, and now we know Apple has given up trying.

 

[Rogifan]

Why don’t they announce products when they are ready to ship? HomePod, AirPods, Mac Pro, etc all delayed beyond their initial ship date. Why are they announcing and touting products still in the prototyping phase? I’d only announce it once hardware was finalized and it is ready to enter production.

I do wonder who was the final say on announcing this at the keynote? Was marketing pressuring engineering or did the hardware engineering teams promise something they couldn’t deliver? Dan Riccio made the announcement but we don’t know if he’s just the fall guy or if his team really did screw up.

 

[cmaier]

Obviously. But I haven’t seen one that’s elegant enough to charge all three of my devices. Buying individual chargers looks bad and looks like a cluster****.

Since I intended it to sit on my nightstand, I want it to match aesthetically with the rest of my home. Other Qi chargers don’t charge with an Apple Watch, unless you have one that has an Apple Watch charger built in, but I’ve yet to find a product that looks modern or minimalistic.

Nomad makes a nice triple charger

 

[Zanton68]

Rose-colored glasses. Not everything Steve did was great and Apple hasn’t always been perfect.

This is a bad look, but it’s still a minor accessory at the end of the day and Apple essentially admitted they weren’t all in on developing their own charging accessories when they gave the devices the Qi standard.

Fair point. It just seems such a shambles and, I would have thought producing something that Belkin can produce (but better) wouldn't be too much of a stretch for Apple. I think it was a mistake to announce it without knowing when it would be ready.

 

[tywebb13]

They didn’t have to cancel it. Just rename and repurpose it.

Call it the Apple Hotplate. Great for cooking bacon and eggs.