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Apple Officially Cancels AirPower

They are announcing products far too early, and features as well. They announce features for the next iOS at WWDC, then the next iOS comes out, but you have to wait yet another six or 9 months for all of the features to roll out. Such was the case with iMessages in the cloud.

Their software is far buggier than it used to be. iOS was pretty stable under Forstall, it hasn't been the same since iOS 7. Even Mac apps are buggy... iTunes has had issues properly displaying album art for well over a year now... I have a large library and every song has embedded album art, yet I have to manually right-click on the first song of each album not displaying artwork and select "Get Song Info" to get it to properly display. If they don't display in iTunes, they don't sync to the iPhone.

To this day, you can't easily delete all the messages on your Apple Watch... you have to swipe and delete each message one by one.

For all their innovation, there are some things that seem so simple they overlook. Obvious and simple bugs or missing features take them years to fix.
 
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my god, can't believe i missed this))) i've got to say i am proud of them for cancelling this rather than pretending like the released something decent.

ok, can anyone recommend a great, inexpensive wireless charger that supports vertical charging? :)
 
I7guy said:
I think Apple may have pulled the plug on AirPower but not the entire idea. It’s un-Apple like in the way it was handled but maybe apple had a reason to do it this way. (Although I cant fathom why)
Click to expand...
As others have speculated, they pulled the product as they were not yet able to achieve stable performance for a multi-coiled, multi-charging wireless device - for that reason, it was good that they canceled the release. What I worry about these days with Apple is two-fold:

* The history, over the last several years, of releasing buggy products, such as unreliable butterfly keyboards and flimsy cables leading to "ghosting" on MBP displays (which requires an expensive subassembly replacement to correct the problematical $5 cable issue), and the latest iPad Pros with bending issues. QC and and lack of repairability in the newer products is becoming systemic.

* Concurrent tendency to announce that long neglected products, such as the Mac Pro, are in the works - similar to announcing the AirPower product even thought it was having technical issues. At least they didn't release it before the customers were again made product "beta testers" (as in the MBP). It appears that the marketing folks aren't adequately communicating with the product engineers, so not-ready-for-prime-time products get released or announced before being adequately tested for issues. As for the Mac Pro, if it really has been in serious development for the last six years, it ought to be one heck of a revolutionary machine when it finally gets released. I suspect that it's been relegated to being a niche product with few resources devoted to its development. Even the marketing divisions have ignored it.

There's a famous interview with SJ around the time he came back to Apple in which he discusses the tendency for marketing to supersede R&D and engineering. That works fine for products like Pepsi, where the product development is fairly slow/stable, but is problematical for high tech products, where engineering needs priority. Of course, he was referring to John Sculley at the time. Apple seems to be in a similar predicament right now. The whole conglomeration of hardware offerings seems a bit over-inflated - 3 or 4 iPhone models, 4 or 5 different iPad models, 3 or 4 laptop models, not to mention the various iWatches, AirPods, and the plethora of dongles needed to make up for lack of ports, phone jacks, and varying power sockets (Lightning vs. USB-C). Of course, non-laptop Mac offerings have no such diffusion of offerings, as their development has been either slow (iMac, Mac Mini) or MIA (Mac Pro).

I'm well aware that Apple, at least to-date, is raking in lots of money and profits; but it really seems the company is in sore need - again - of a real visionary among its top executives if it is to remain at the head of the class in the future decades.
 
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tbh they probably just read the market and decided it wasn't a viable economic segment

wireless charging sold the iPhone 8 and X, and helped move the 3rd party wireless charger market

there's absolutely no reason apple couldn't have made it except for number crunching pushing them away

or as someone else suggested - future iPhones made of material other than glass
 
Maybe the best decision Tim has made. Heck, I don't know. Whats next? Mac Pro? Makes me wonder. Announce and not deliver? Not a good look at all. It's pretty souring anyway. Slow harmonica plays in the background.
 
Reading some of the conspiracy theories on here is legitimately entertaining.

I really doubt Apple conspired to do anything beyond get people hyped for a product they legitimately planned to launch. They announced something far before they should have and they blew it. This is what happens when you deify a company. They don't tend to slip up. They slipped up. I don't think there's anything between the lines here....
 
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after Phil announcing it in 2017, my wife told me that I can get it as birthday gift in 2018, now my birthday in 2019 is 2 days left.........:(:(:( [:rolleyes::rolleyes: LOL, she is very nice and now decided to buy me the NOMAD, btw. any one has used the NOMAD?]
 
curtvaughan said:
As others have speculated, they pulled the product as they were not yet able to achieve stable performance for a multi-coiled, multi-charging wireless device - for that reason, it was good that they canceled the release. What I worry about these days with Apple is two-fold:

* The history, over the last several years, of releasing buggy products, such as unreliable butterfly keyboards and flimsy cables leading to "ghosting" on MBP displays (which requires an expensive subassembly replacement to correct the problematical $5 cable issue), and the latest iPad Pros with bending issues. QC and and lack of repairability in the newer products is becoming systemic.

* Concurrent tendency to announce that long neglected products, such as the Mac Pro, are in the works - similar to announcing the AirPower product even thought it was having technical issues. At least they didn't release it before the customers were again made product "beta testers" (as in the MBP). It appears that the marketing folks aren't adequately communicating with the product engineers, so not-ready-for-prime-time products get released or announced before being adequately tested for issues. As for the Mac Pro, if it really has been in serious development for the last six years, it ought to be one heck of a revolutionary machine when it finally gets released. I suspect that it's been relegated to being a niche product with few resources devoted to its development. Even the marketing divisions have ignored it.

There's a famous interview with SJ around the time he came back to Apple in which he discusses the tendency for marketing to supersede R&D and engineering. That works fine for products like Pepsi, where the product development is fairly slow/stable, but is problematical for high tech products, where engineering needs priority. Of course, he was referring to John Sculley at the time. Apple seems to be in a similar predicament right now. The whole conglomeration of hardware offerings seems a bit over-inflated - 3 or 4 iPhone models, 4 or 5 different iPad models, 3 or 4 laptop models, not to mention the various iWatches, AirPods, and the plethora of dongles needed to make up for lack of ports, phone jacks, and varying power sockets (Lightning vs. USB-C). Of course, non-laptop Mac offerings have no such diffusion of offerings, as their development has been either slow (iMac, Mac Mini) or MIA (Mac Pro).

I'm well aware that Apple, at least to-date, is raking in lots of money and profits; but it really seems the company is in sore need - again - of a real visionary among its top executives if it is to remain at the head of the class in the future decades.
Click to expand...
IMO, the airpods is not indicative of any Apple failings, we can speculate, but probably might never know the real story. I'm not worried about Apple at all. SJ has passed away and time to move on. Tim Cook based on where he took apple is a visionary in his own right. Maybe not the same type of visionary SJ was. As far as the number of products, times have changed and it seems Apple is in a transitory state with getting it's products on the same type of port. But we each have our own view, whether we are an investor, manager, consumer or board member.
 
PickUrPoison said:
Better:

“We just can’t ship junk.” — Steve Jobs
Click to expand...

Better one:

“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying ‘no’ to 1,000 things.” — Steve Jobs

Someone should have said no to the Airpower 30-coil beast years ago.
 
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I’m confident the person or persons responsible for this will be terminated or demoted. Maybe it was marketing fault for assuming the product actually worked and wanted to market it a way to sell more iPhone X phones. I don’t care about the device personally. But for Apple it’s a huge failure in marketing and engineering combined. They should have never marketed a product that was so far away from being completed.
 
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curtvaughan said:
As others have speculated, they pulled the product as they were not yet able to achieve stable performance for a multi-coiled, multi-charging wireless device - for that reason, it was good that they canceled the release. What I worry about these days with Apple is two-fold:

* The history, over the last several years, of releasing buggy products, such as unreliable butterfly keyboards and flimsy cables leading to "ghosting" on MBP displays (which requires an expensive subassembly replacement to correct the problematical $5 cable issue), and the latest iPad Pros with bending issues. QC and and lack of repairability in the newer products is becoming systemic.

* Concurrent tendency to announce that long neglected products, such as the Mac Pro, are in the works - similar to announcing the AirPower product even thought it was having technical issues. At least they didn't release it before the customers were again made product "beta testers" (as in the MBP). It appears that the marketing folks aren't adequately communicating with the product engineers, so not-ready-for-prime-time products get released or announced before being adequately tested for issues. As for the Mac Pro, if it really has been in serious development for the last six years, it ought to be one heck of a revolutionary machine when it finally gets released. I suspect that it's been relegated to being a niche product with few resources devoted to its development. Even the marketing divisions have ignored it.

There's a famous interview with SJ around the time he came back to Apple in which he discusses the tendency for marketing to supersede R&D and engineering. That works fine for products like Pepsi, where the product development is fairly slow/stable, but is problematical for high tech products, where engineering needs priority. Of course, he was referring to John Sculley at the time. Apple seems to be in a similar predicament right now. The whole conglomeration of hardware offerings seems a bit over-inflated - 3 or 4 iPhone models, 4 or 5 different iPad models, 3 or 4 laptop models, not to mention the various iWatches, AirPods, and the plethora of dongles needed to make up for lack of ports, phone jacks, and varying power sockets (Lightning vs. USB-C). Of course, non-laptop Mac offerings have no such diffusion of offerings, as their development has been either slow (iMac, Mac Mini) or MIA (Mac Pro).

I'm well aware that Apple, at least to-date, is raking in lots of money and profits; but it really seems the company is in sore need - again - of a real visionary among its top executives if it is to remain at the head of the class in the future decades.
Click to expand...

The current trend I see is that Apple is knocking it out of the park with wearables (Apple Watch, Airpods) while apparently struggling with Macs. I won’t go so far as to claim that Apple has lost its way because of this, but I do find it is indicative of where Apple’s priorities lie these days.

And with any pivot, there will always be winners (the people who like mobile and are indifferent about Macs) and losers (those who are the inverse).

I do feel that Apple continues to be on the right path, stumbles and all, unpopular as this may sound right now. Macs just don’t represent the future at Apple.
 
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