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So, iMac and Apple Watch aren't getting form factor updates this year because redesigns for all products, specifically for wireless charging are coming in 2018?
Yes. Assuming the particular set of rumors that led you this conclusion are true.

If some of them are not true (or only partly true), then No.

Or Maybe.

It's one of those three, I'm sure of it.
 
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Can't believe these people aren't concerned about wearing Earpods for 8 hours a day, beaming that wireless radiation directly into their brains!!
Pretty different being concerned about low range very low energy radiation from headphones than it is being concerned about broadcasting enough energy to actually charge a device.
 
Wireless charging sounds cool. But will it take longer to charge a device? And what if any health concerns are there?
Very good questions. Health & safety are key to me. Cell phone emf is bad enough and issue is totally ignored by major tech companies besides publishing SAR numbers.
 
Kind of hoping this isn't Apple even though the tech is awesome. Really just want Apple to get back to regularly delivering incremental and solid updates on their products instead of creating so much chaos and leaving a different user group hanging every year.

We don't need a hail mary, we need consistent solid products delivered on a regular schedule. Get that right, then you've got a good foundation for the leaps. The iPhone was introduced onto a foundation of incrementally better iPod after iPod...

Don't see this tech as making a long term difference for the company who gets there first vs. second. If it becomes ubiquitous, it will only be fanbois who care who did it first.
 
It doesn't matter how long it takes to charge the device, forget running the phone to 10% and then plugging it in, the idea is you'll trickle charge it ALL the time no matter which room you're in with a transmitter, it should be slow, but just fast enough to continue to charge the phone in a positive manner when in heavy use, thats all thats needed, to keep it topped up, not fast charge it from 0.

That's actually a horrible idea. Sure it's great if you're at home all day and night, but there are numerous times we may only have an hour or two to bump the charge on a phone before going away. If this technology is slow like that it is no use to people on the move a lot aside from during the night. Say I'm at work all day where I'm unable to charge, I get home at 4 with 25% battery and need to leave at 6 to attend a sporting event that will last 4 hours or more. If it's a slow charge that can only get me 20-25% in that time it's not practical for me to not still need a cable charger. So it does in fact still matter how lon it takes to charge a device in order for a phone to truly be based off wireless charging.
 
If you walked into a room with a WattUp transmitter, for example, a smartphone with a built-in WattUp receiver would automatically begin charging.
If you walked into a room with an open microwave... oh, so many things would begin charging...
 
Goodbye lightening port. Hello hermetically sealed iPhone.

They better get this in the next iPhone or else Samsung will get it and make iPhone look uninnovative again, haha. Seems like this will be a trickle charge. They'll still keep the lightning cable for getting a boost.

hey i'll take it if it means my iphone wont be spending 90% of its time below 10% battery like it does now. I'm too lazy to plug in to charge most of the time. If a slow trickle gives me another 10-20% while i sleep, sounds good to me
 
Comparison:
Bluetooth of an iPhone (Class 2): 0,0025W
Wifi of the same iPhone: 0,1W
GSM part of the iPhone: 2W
Output of iPhone charger: 5W
Output of iPad Charger: 10-12W
Output of MacBook Charger: 29W
Output of MacBook Pro charger: 60-85W
Mac Pro at full power: 270W

So, you need 5W to charge your iPhone, and Energous says you can do that up to 15 feet away.
I'm sceptical. That would require insane amounts of energy at the point of transmission.

There's a world of difference between sending radio signals and signals powerful enough to deliver actual power at the receiver.
 
I'm genuinely concerned with yet another type of "wave" bouncing around inside my house. And call me one of those "get off my lawn" types - but would we really know how safe it is now? Or in 10/20/30 years after it's been used a long time.

I have this concern, as well as wondering how efficient it will be. Charging a battery with a wire is pretty lossy. Charging a battery with a mat like a QI charger is more so. How much more power will you have to throw though the air in all directions to have enough of it stick to a battery to charge it?
 
It doesn't matter how long it takes to charge the device, forget running the phone to 10% and then plugging it in, the idea is you'll trickle charge it ALL the time no matter which room you're in with a transmitter, it should be slow, but just fast enough to continue to charge the phone in a positive manner when in heavy use, thats all thats needed, to keep it topped up, not fast charge it from 0.

Radio waves have been around long before humans, there are no health concerns - that doesn't stop people turning their wifi off at night though does it, or refusing to wear bluetooth headphones cos of zapping it straight to their (borderline useless) brains.


Considering the article says the range is 15', some people are going to need a lot of transmitters.
 
So, iMac and Apple Watch aren't getting form factor updates this year because redesigns for all products, specifically for wireless charging are coming in 2018?
wtf, why the imac or any other destop macs, need wireless charging? you probably meant macbook
So the imac can get a redesign since has nothing to do with wireless charging, for wireless charging you need a battery inside...so what battery has the imac inside?
 
One of the things that always wears out on iPhones after a few years use is the connector so wireless charging can only be a good thing as long as the battery heat / degredation issues are ironed out. That said even if they do have problems I just had my out of warranty iPhone 6s battery swapped free of charge thanks to the recall so even if there is a problem I am confident it will get resolved. My OH has a Samsung S6 and I do envy her charger!
 
That's actually a horrible idea. Sure it's great if you're at home all day and night, but there are numerous times we may only have an hour or two to bump the charge on a phone before going away. If this technology is slow like that it is no use to people on the move a lot aside from during the night. Say I'm at work all day where I'm unable to charge, I get home at 4 with 25% battery and need to leave at 6 to attend a sporting event that will last 4 hours or more. If it's a slow charge that can only get me 20-25% in that time it's not practical for me to not still need a cable charger. So it does in fact still matter how lon it takes to charge a device in order for a phone to truly be based off wireless charging.

You only have a point of they remove the lightning charging jack. Otherwise you just plug in your phone the normal way. At least if you are at a sporting event the phone will not run out of juice for any reason while you are there. That will largely negate this sort of concern.

I have no idea how you would consider it a negative that it only charges so fast at such an event compared to now where you don't get any charge at all.

I am thinking they would have a fast charge pad and use this as well. Although I can't see them putting a charging pad in the box. Can't see them getting rid of the lightning jack this soon. Just breath a little bit and remind yourself this solution is most likely to be in addition to the ways you charge now.

So you are at 10% battery when you go in the stadium. You use the phone during the entire game. Send tweets, take video, stream replays etc. When you leave at the end of the game you have 30% battery. How is that a bad thing?

After you leave the game you plug it in your car charger like you normally would. Now you are 30% closer to full at the time of charging than you would have been. Without this technology you would have run out of your 10% taking video in the middle of the game.

By the time you drive 20 minutes home you are now up to say 50%. As soon as you enter your house it charges automatically and you can use it at the same time. Even if it is slow because of heavy use it continues to charge all night no matter what you are doing.

By the time you wake in the morning it is at 100%. If for some reason it isn't you get out your charging cord and do it the old fashioned way. I really don't understand your argument.
 
Considering the article says the range is 15', some people are going to need a lot of transmitters.

As others have said people will probably have one in their living room and one in their bedroom or office. That is how I would see myself doing it. So there might be some toilet time that you won't be charging.

How far you want to go with base stations is simply a matter of money. People who have lots of money will probably have every square foot of their house covered.
 
However, overhydration, or drinking too much water, is also a potentially deadly condition. It can throw off the balance between water and sodium in your blood.

It's a bit silly to be living in fear.

We have a longer life expectancy now than we did back in the day and that's despite the fact that we have much more "hazards" coming at us everywhere we go.

People make issues out of anything and unfortunately with the internet, you can find an article backing any agenda you're trying to push.

I can find you articles that say water is bad for you and some idiots probably believe it.
 
It's a bit silly to be living in fear.

We have a longer life expectancy now than we did back in the day and that's despite the fact that we have much more "hazards" coming at us everywhere we go.

People make issues out of anything and unfortunately with the internet, you can find an article backing any agenda you're trying to push.

I can find you articles that say water is bad for you and some idiots probably believe it.


We might be living longer now but 1 in 3 of us now have cancer!
 
if we have this with wifi waves..there is no risk of cancer,maybe in 50 years of using this
 
As others have said people will probably have one in their living room and one in their bedroom or office. That is how I would see myself doing it. So there might be some toilet time that you won't be charging.

How far you want to go with base stations is simply a matter of money. People who have lots of money will probably have every square foot of their house covered.

I understand that. I was replying to the post below that make it sound very simple, and less expensive, than it probably will be in real life. Only time will tell...

It doesn't matter how long it takes to charge the device, forget running the phone to 10% and then plugging it in, the idea is you'll trickle charge it ALL the time no matter which room you're in with a transmitter, it should be slow, but just fast enough to continue to charge the phone in a positive manner when in heavy use, thats all thats needed, to keep it topped up, not fast charge it from 0...
 
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Very good questions. Health & safety are key to me. Cell phone emf is bad enough and issue is totally ignored by major tech companies besides publishing SAR numbers.

Samsung started investing in SAR reduction antennas back around 2012, which is why many of their cell phones have the lowest SAR ratings. (I don't think this is true for their S7 though.)

On the other hand, iPhone SAR is usually right at the maximum legal limit. If you're someone who worries about such things, you should not be using an iPhone.

So, you need 5W to charge your iPhone, and Energous says you can do that up to 15 feet away.

At 15' they only claim a trickle charge. For 4W, you have to be within about five feet.

I'm sceptical. That would require insane amounts of energy at the point of transmission.

Yeah, the fact that Energous refuses to disclose how much, makes a lot of people skeptical. Even with a focused phased array antenna that "beams" directly at each target device, they could need hundreds of Watts or more at the source.

Plus if anything like a human gets between the antenna and device, the antenna has to try get around the barrier by bouncing off walls or ceilings, which drastically increases the distance and lowers the available charge.
 
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You only have a point of they remove the lightning charging jack. Otherwise you just plug in your phone the normal way. At least if you are at a sporting event the phone will not run out of juice for any reason while you are there. That will largely negate this sort of concern.

I have no idea how you would consider it a negative that it only charges so fast at such an event compared to now where you don't get any charge at all.

I am thinking they would have a fast charge pad and use this as well. Although I can't see them putting a charging pad in the box. Can't see them getting rid of the lightning jack this soon. Just breath a little bit and remind yourself this solution is most likely to be in addition to the ways you charge now.

So you are at 10% battery when you go in the stadium. You use the phone during the entire game. Send tweets, take video, stream replays etc. When you leave at the end of the game you have 30% battery. How is that a bad thing?

After you leave the game you plug it in your car charger like you normally would. Now you are 30% closer to full at the time of charging than you would have been. Without this technology you would have run out of your 10% taking video in the middle of the game.

By the time you drive 20 minutes home you are now up to say 50%. As soon as you enter your house it charges automatically and you can use it at the same time. Even if it is slow because of heavy use it continues to charge all night no matter what you are doing.

By the time you wake in the morning it is at 100%. If for some reason it isn't you get out your charging cord and do it the old fashioned way. I really don't understand your argument.

My whole point was stated on the last line of my post. I am talking about the technology as far as making a phone truly wireless. For that, the technology isn't ready yet. I'm not saying as described that it would be a bad addition, just pointing out that until it is close to the speed of a cable it is nothing more than a nice added accessory as opposed to a dependent feature. Kind of similar to wireless internet. Until wifi was able to be fast enough to truly make it so we could use only wifi and have adequate speeds, it was nothing more than a cool feature to have, it wasn't truly practical for use on a computer that couldn't still plug in to get faster speeds when needed. That is all. I am not knocking the advancement in technology, rather pointing out that it isn't where it needs to be for a phone to be truly wireless charging.
 
That would mean strong electric or magnetic fields, which may not be good for health.
 
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