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iPhone 11 Lineup Said to Include Two-Way Charging Hardware, But Software Disabled
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it would be nice to have the ability to charge my apple watch but honestly if I had to lay my phone flat on the table and basically disable my phone to charge my watch I doubt I would use the feature - it will be an interesting topic of discussion if they in fact built the 11 with the hardware but decided last minute to disable the feature. This could be the ultimate "oh, and one last thing..." if they turn the feature on next Friday- haha
I actually have two phones, one an iPhone and the other a Samsung S10+. I have never used the reverse wireless charging. It's a gimmick that I doubt anyone ever uses, seeing as watches or AirPods (or Galaxy Buds) generally have better battery life than the phone. The only time I even turned it on was because one of the AT&T employees wanted to see the phone. I turned it on, then turned it off. Since then I have had no desire to use it.
I'm not surprised Apple turned it off through software. Hardware is designed more than a half year in advance, so pulling out the hardware at the last minute is an impossibility without forcing the phone back into months-long delays of re-testing. I'm also not surprised Apple didn't think it worked very well. The S10+ I have does not have very effective reverse wireless charging. If Apple can figure out a way to make it work better via software, Apple will probably re-enable the feature somewhere down the road.
They didn't have a radio chip in them, they had a Bluetooth/Wifi chip that also includes radio. They didn't activate it because there was no radio antenna to pick up any signals.
To take the contrarian view.....it could also be that Apple is resolved to not talking about any non-ready-to-ship wireless charging features until they are 100% certain it actually works after the AirPower embarrassment.
Actually, that would be quite nice. I was trying image why we would ever want to be able to use the iPhone to charge other devices given how we rant about how precious iPhone battery life it. If it would work in they way you describe to charge iphone and airpods or watch with one cable that would useful.
I watched some trials of the feature on YouTube. The *best* result I saw was in a 15-minute test. The charger lost 13% of battery life and the chargee only gained 6%. Less than 50% efficient, and a waste of 15 minutes. Considering a fast charger can take your phone from 0-50% in 30 minutes, this feature is nothing but a gimmick.
And rumored walkie-talkie feature.
https://www.macrumors.com/2019/08/26/iphone-walkie-talkie-feature-shelved/
maybe the reverse charging is how you recharge the tiles too.
Amazon sells portable chargers for the watch that doesn’t rely on the cable. I don’t see what the fuss is. I purchased one and it was a life saver on several occasions.
That would be cool and the perfect spots! They would have to do away with the aluminum in those areas for it but good idea.
I personally don’t mind plugging in because I have some mini cables and a Mophie XXL.
But yeah I can see the appeal for others.
80%? That's a huge loss. If that's true, no wonder Apple abandoned that. (Although I thought all this was supposed to charge was a Watch or AirPods.)
It was never promised. I could make a rumor that the 2020 iPhones have long distance wireless charging, along with a built-in EKG in the power button, and super long distance Face ID with in-screen Touch ID. It will simply be that, a rumor.
It's slow (a few sites have tested it). To charge your phone to 50% would probably use 60% of the other battery, and you'd have to wait for a few hours. Even charging Galaxy EarBuds is slow. Who wants to leave their device alone upside down while slow-charging someone else?
The U1 chip wasn't mentioned at all in the keynote either, though they did mention it on the specs page later.
Not necessarily. The coil would be the same. There'd be a different power management chip to allow power to go to the coil, but I doubt any teardown people would know how it's used. The S10 teardowns only showed a difference for heat management (sandwich the coils in some sort of graphite material). So if the iPhones have some sort of heat management around the coil this might indicate reverse charging, but it's no guarantee.
I’m more excited about this because my gf’s phone is somehow always <10% charged when she needs it. I’d love to be able to charge it from my phone on the fly.
Let’s face, if you’re using it in the office you’re going to have an external keyboard and mouse attached right?
Not entirely true. The chip in the Apple devices had an ever so slightly different part number, so nobody can verify if it actually had radio built in. They just assumed it was because it was part of the same family of chips and the main portion of the part number matched. Plus there was no antenna. It's likely the reason for the different part number is Apple had a batch made with that function removed (since they buy components in the hundreds of millions).
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Apples reputation in your mind doesn't translate to the rest of the population. Apple suffered absolutely zero reputation loss over AirPower.
It's not 80% loss, but it really is only good for charging earbuds or a watch. The charge output is at 4.5w, which is REALLY SLOW for charging a phone.
I'm wondering if this is a time where that saying "jack of all trades, master of none" applies. Maybe they are realizing that they don't have the skills to be good enough at this to include it as a core feature and instead leave it to the 3rd party market?
Actually there would be hardware present, along with an additional chip. Apple Watch charges via proprietary methods so the standard Qi coils won’t work as efficient for the watch. Perhaps on AirPods.
It’s a bit of a pain, but hey, it’s Apple we’re talking about.
That would be pretty cool. Wonder if typing on the MBP with an AW on would try to send laser beams of energy through your wrist all the time?
This is my only thinking in why they might not reveal it until they're ready to reveal the tiles.
Otherwise if they have the hardware in but disabled thats a big fail for them. Even if inefficient its still handy for airpods or watch for topping up small devices.
This seems unlikely. If the hardware were there, why not enable wireless charging when the iPhone is being charged with a lightning connector? You could charge the phone plus another device off one cable. Efficiency isn't an issue for a phone being charged.