iPhone 11 Pro iPhone 11 Pro Max: built-in magnetic mount?

[mecloud]

One of my friends has a magnetic-mounting goose-neck phone holder in his car, meant to be used with a phone case with a metal plate to hold the phone onto the magnet. Just goofing around, I placed my iPhone 11 Pro Max (in an Apple leather case) on that, and to our great surprise the phone actually was holding magnetically to it. My friend's iPhone Xs (without the special case for that mount) did not "stick" at all. My 11 Pro Max definitely does "stick", though probably not with enough magnetic force to hold if driving over a big bump. Guess I should try again without the leather case.

Have I found some intentional new un-announced feature, or is this perhaps just an accident caused by some other aspect of the design on the new iPhone?

 

[DesertSilver]

Hmmmm...I just checked and my 11 Pro also attaches to a magnetic mount without a case. But I also noticed it’s not as strong of a hold than the metal plate so would definitely be cautious.

 

[Nonentity]

I noticed this, got me wondering about the rumoured two way charging and the Apple Watch, but it’s not strong enough to hold a watch in place.

 

[mecloud]

The inductive charging was the first thing I thought of, and since my friend's Xs also has inductive charging (but does not "stick" to the mount), maybe this does indicate that either 2-way charging hardware is in place (but not yet supported by iOS), or that *part* of it is there but not fully implemented in hardware (stranger things have happened).

I just tried placing my AirPod case on the back, and it doesn't really hold that in place either. But you can definitely feel where the magnetic force is, right in the middle under the Apple logo. Perhaps *that's* the real reason for putting the logo where it now is.