By having a fan, and sometimes a thermoelectric cooler inside, with the side touching the phone very cold. The first time I used one of those MagSafe fans my mind was blown, it literally can turn its surface from room temp to cold to touch in seconds.
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iOS 26 Adds 25W Qi2 Wireless Charging Support to iPhone 16 Models
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The Belkin UltraCharge Pro 3-in-1 Magnetic Charging Dock includes a "built-in smart fan for temperature regulation." Apparently, without the fan, an iPhone may temporarily stop accepting a charge from a Qi2 25W wireless charger due to heat, thereby reducing the fast charging benefit (see this review).
The iPhone supported Qi charging before MagSafe (for iPhone) even existed. And while the iPhone may have held on to Lightning, that doesn't mean they didn't create a MacBook that removed all ports other than USB-C to push it's adoption, or the fact they voluntarily removed Lightning from the iPad.
"Fact is, without legal regulations, iPhones would still be using Lightning today" is conjecture. We have no way of actually knowing if the switch would have happened voluntarily (like it did for the rest of their products) or not. (And in fact, it legally still is voluntary because the laws restricting Lightning's use are not applicable worldwide.)
I do feel they may have a motive of wanting to create a portless device, but I digress.
We can credit the EU for forcing Apple's hand on USB-C and on the other hand credit Apple for contributing MagSafe to Qi2. Fact is, Qi had effectively plateaued as a standard until Apple did that. Personally I fried my iPhone 12 mini when I misaligned it with a Qi "fast charging" stand - it was too low relative to the charging pad, which was not magnetic. That taught me to ensure that I had MagSafe or Qi2 solutions that allowed for safe, quick alignment. Throughout all of this the forgotten piece is the ill-fated AirPower project, which started as a product and may have ended up becoming its own standard like MagSafe/Qi2 if it was successful.
My current nightstand charger is an Energizer MagSafe-compatible mount that I got from a Ross Dress for Less clearance rack for $10. It provides 15W which is fine and rarely needed. My work charger is my old MagSafe battery pack plugged in via Lightning. I don't charge in my car regularly because the battery is rarely depleted enough to warrant it. If I need to do a 20-80% charge there's always a USB-C cable available and it does the job in 30 minutes. It's cool that wireless 25W is now supported. It's just not practical for me.
My current nightstand charger is an Energizer MagSafe-compatible mount that I got from a Ross Dress for Less clearance rack for $10. It provides 15W which is fine and rarely needed. My work charger is my old MagSafe battery pack plugged in via Lightning. I don't charge in my car regularly because the battery is rarely depleted enough to warrant it. If I need to do a 20-80% charge there's always a USB-C cable available and it does the job in 30 minutes. It's cool that wireless 25W is now supported. It's just not practical for me.
The 7.5W and the 15W charging use older tech that generates more heat. My 25W Apple Magsafe charger generates less heat with my iPhone than my old cheap Qi Anker charge pad that does 7.5W or maybe it was 12W or something. And it does charge more than twice as fast, the old Anker pad takes multiple hours.
That's why Apple can't tune up older iPhones to suddenly accept 25W or support Qi2 because those just don't have the hardware capable of doing it. At the very least it would generate way too much heat just like you said.