iPhone 5 NEEDS Inductive Charging, Damn It!

[hitekalex]

Errr... the exact same safety reasoning applies for phones. Probably more so.

Not really. Most people charge smartphones over night, while you're NOT actively using them.. So you're rarely in a situation to knock off the phone by stepping on its charging cable. Laptops on the other hand are often charged while you use them on a couch or in various random places. That's where MagSafe comes to the rescue.

However, I actually was referring to the nice feel of putting something together magnetically instead of physically. Another example of that might be the SmartCovers on new iPads.

I get what you're saying.. but still don't see a real advantage over a desktop dock (assuming that a simple charging cable isn't good enough). I also do not want to carry an inductive charger with me everywhere I go, when small charging/dock cable does just fine.

And you're not going to get rid of dock port on iDevices.. not now, not in the foreseeable future. Must have a physical port for things like syncing, HDMI video, system restore, USB audio attachments for Garage Band, etc,etc.

And since dock cable charging isn't going anywhere - Apple is not going to bother with inductive charging. They are going to leave this to Palm/HP's of the world, who desperately need "features" to differentiate from iPhone. You can take this to the bank. 😉

 

[kdarling]

I get what you're saying.. but still don't see a real advantage over a desktop dock ...

*laughing* Yeah, you got me there. I'm also a huge fan of desktop docks for organizational purposes. I have one for each phone I develop on, including some homemade ones.

And you're not going to get rid of dock port on iDevices.. not now, not in the foreseeable future. Must have a physical port for things like syncing, HDMI video, system restore, USB audio attachments for Garage Band, etc,etc.

I agree that having communications as well as charging, would be a must for induction pads to take over completely. I do think that sometime in the future, physical dock connections will be seen as old style.

Still, if you mostly just charge your phone, instead of plugging in comms or video output, etc, then man oh man are ones like the Touchstone nice.

Cheers!

 

[Reefbone]

Honey Badger doesn't care if they have inductive charging or not. He's hungry. He'll eat anything

 

[PNutts]

Induction charging sounds like a good idea as long as I can still use my $1 knock-off charging cords that I have scattered at each computer/work/car/backpack. I don't want to run out of juice at work or in a car because my fancy induction charger is at home.

 

[PNutts]

Honey Badger doesn't care if they have inductive charging or not. He's hungry. He'll eat anything

You owe me a new keyboard, Sir. I laughed and spit out my COBRA! 😛

 

[chris975d]

I too thought it was just a gimmick before I got the Touchstone, which was less than the diameter of a hockey puck.

You simply lay the phone on its slanted surface, where strong magnets align it and turn on the charger. The Palm also automatically went into speaker phone mode if you got or made a call while it was on the charger.

Here, maybe this will help: It's like the difference between a regular laptop power plug and a MagSafe plug, only MUCH better since you don't even have to find the right spot to hit. You could tell that the Touchstone idea probably came from one of the Apple engineers who moved to Palm.



You're confusing those huge aftermarket mats with a fairly small inductive charger like the Palm Touchstone, that can sit elegantly in a corner.

And yes, it sure beats plugging in tiny usb plugs that can eventually break. Not to mention that in theory you could build a totally sealed and waterproof unit this way.

Pic below is the phone back and the base.

I do have a Palm Pre Plus that I mess around with, and I agree that the Touchstone system is a great idea, but I honestly don't see much added convenience over the dock on my desk that I drop my iPhone into to charge. There's a cable going to the back of each device (the iPhone dock and the Touchstone puck), so there's no added benefit of fewer wires. True, there could be a potential benefit of using the Touchstone style induction charging to design sealed units (phones), but I really don't see a whole lot of benefit to the induction charging in it's current form. The phone still has to be placed on a very specific, relatively small device to charge, which is no real difference (in use) to a drop in dock. When/if induction charging can get to the point that when my phone is in a general area (anywhere on desk, or anywhere inside my car, for example), instead of being placed on a specific device, then I can see a real benefit to it.

Added: Hitekalex said pretty much the same thing I said.

 

[Consultant]

The iPhone 5 must absolutely have inductive charging built into the hardware, damn it. If Palm could do it seamlessly years ago, Apple has better well be able to do it now for a premium brand.

Palm also went bankrupt, attempting to sell devices to mostly basement nerds who talk the talk but cannot get their moms to buy the product.

 

[robby818]

I bought a Palm Pixi plus a couple of months ago. Loved the touchstone inductive charging system. It was the only thing I really liked about the phone aside from the $60 price. The system worked well and was very convenient because I would leave a touchstone in various locations including my car. Having a touchstone makes charging a lot less of a hassle. I don't want to plug my phone to a cable every time i get in the car. Who wants to fumble with the cable and connector when you can just drop it on the touchstone? When on the touchstone, the phone changed its settings automatically to speaker answer mode. Would love to see Apple implement this in the iPhone and iPad.

 

[jdminpdx]

The Powermat is an ugly POS that makes all phones bulky. Palm is able to integrate the inductive hardware right into the phone and makes it slick, that's what is required. With the Powermat, it also exposes the screen of the phone with no lip. With the added weight, you are guaranteed to crack your phone in a drop.

For God's sake, my toothbrush can do inductive charging.

Yeah. I had the powermat for about 10 seconds before I realized how *****TY it was.

 

[Kane08]

Well then you don't use it everyday, because the alarm feature in the clock.app failed for EVERY iphone that had an alarm programmed on New Year's day last year. Here is the article: http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/31/psa-iphone-alarms-not-working-come-new-years-day-2011/


Oh did I mention the problem lasted for 3 days? Until it fixed itself...

actually, neither of my iPhones has had that problem for the last 3 years either, and I do use it ever single day, with multiple alarms. I would suggest not taking media hype about a problem that only affected a small number of users and making a blanket statement with it

 

[tablo13]

It'll make the iPhone more "revolutionary" and "innovative" 😀


Sent from my iPod touch 4th generation using Tapatalk

 

[M-5]

Conductive charging is sort of neat, but there are some problems I see with it. First of all, the benefit of having conductive charging is that you can place the device on a pad to charge instead of having to connect a wire to it. When I charge my phone though, I like to have it connected to the outlet near my bed so that I can still use the phone or answer a call/text if one comes in. If my iPhone had to be set on a desk every time to charge, then it's just more of a hassle for me since I can't really have the device with me and use it while charging.

I could move the touchstone cradle near me, but that loses the benefit that it gives of convenience of just dropping the phone to charge. Also I'd have to hold the touchstone puck thing and the phone in my hand if I want to use it while charging. It's also more of a hassle to take the charger to other places in the house or anywhere if I want to charge my phone, because the puck adds bulk.

I also like that I can connect my phone to my MacBook through USB and sync and charge with the same cord, and you can't do this with the puck thing. And as for the car conductive charging cradle idea, I see the same problem arising of wondering how I would use the device while charging it at the same time. Also, not many cars have bluetooth, but on some you can transmit audio and charge the phone through the dock connector, but you can only charge with a conductive charger. It would also be difficult to use the phone and the GPS function on it if it had to be cradled to charge the device, whereas with a cord you can charge it and still hold it in your hand while using it.

So these are some reasons why I don't think that conductive charging would be very useful. Basically, I like using my phone while it's charging, and having to hassle with that puck cradle thing if I wanted to use it is just annoying.

Edit: Also, MagSafe doesn't work on iPhones and iPods because they aren't heavy enough to allow the cord to safely detach from the device if you were to trip the chord. The chords are also not very long either, so it is less likely that someone would trip over one.

 

[Reefbone]

You owe me a new keyboard, Sir. I laughed and spit out my COBRA! 😛

Maybe you just spit cause you were drinking Cobra. Honey Badger eats cobra by the way... and larvae. NASTY !