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iPhone 8 to Feature All-Glass Casing in Order to Support Wireless Charging

However, given how thick phones with wireless charging are nowadays and the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 debacle, Apple might NOT adopt wireless charging. It'll be interesting to see if Apple keeps the Lightning port or seriously consider adopting USB Type C, since 1) the Type C connector is only slight bigger than the Lightning connector, 2) it allows for much higher data transfer rates to and from a laptop/desktop computer and 3) it meets the European Union requirement that all phones must use USB connectors.
 
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Kabeyun said:
The point of wireless charging is completely lost on me. Is it that difficult to plug this thing in??
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Well at the moment if you want to use headphones its entirely impossible to plug this thing in. Of course the wireless charging would have to have quite a lot of range to fix that particular problem, so I see your point.
 
Phil A. said:
It is a bit gimmicky at the moment, but has its benefits - for example, some cars come with a wireless charging pad built in so all you do when you get in the car is put the phone down in the tray that contains the charging pad and it charges and connects via Bluetooth to your in car system

It also reduces the wear on the charging port as you can charge it when you're not using it by just placing it on the pad (you can always charge with a cable if you need to charge and use the phone at the same time)

For me, wireless charging isn't a must have but would definitely be a nice to have 🙂
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Apple is rumored to be working with Energous to embed True wireless charging at a distance of 15 feet. This is not inductive charging and will not create thickness because it doesn't require a copper coil. It's a small chip that converts RF to DC.
 
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Marx55 said:
Wireless charging: waste of energy and Earth aggression!
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Efficiency has been thought through. WattUp® Midsize and Full-Size Transmitters sense and communicate to authorized receiver devices via Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and only send power when needed, and requested by those devices. WattUp® is software controlled, intelligently determining which devices receive power, when, and in what priority. If there are no authorized devices within range, the WattUp® transmitter becomes idle, and no power is wasted.
 
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FelixDerKater said:
My toothbrush has been charging wirelessly since before there was an iPhone...
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That's not true wireless charging since you have to place it on something with a wire. This is epic groundbreaking technology. True wireless charging at a distance up to 15 feet for now. $WATT
 
Kabeyun said:
The point of wireless charging is completely lost on me. Is it that difficult to plug this thing in??
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I think its partly a case of "what do you add to the phone that has everything" (apart from headphone jack or SD slot, of course but they might make the phone thicker and we can't have that). But, hey, these are luxury goods - why shouldn't they save you the burden of having to plug and unplug the phone? Your descent into decadence was pretty much fait accompli when you chose a premium smartphone rather than the basic PAYG dumbphone which is all you need to cope with the extinction of public payphones.

For those of us who like to keep their phone for more than 18 months, it removes one of the most likely points of failure & wear - the daily wear on the plug.

Potentially, Apple could now remove the Lightning socket completely, remove a major weak point and make the phone completely watertight.

Actually, this is one of the real reasons why removing the headphone socket in the 7 was premature: imagine the wailing and gnashing of teeth from everybody who has bought Lightning headphones for their 7 if the 8 turns out to have no lightning socket at all... Oh, and don't forget binning your AirPods for AirPod 2s that can use the same charging mat as the phone... Or if they keep Lightning, at least you could charge wirelessly and plug in speakers at the same time.
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FelixDerKater said:
My toothbrush has been charging wirelessly since before there was an iPhone...
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...but then, you probably don't charge your iPhone in the bathroom or wash it under the tap every day - so it wasn't quite so urgent.
 
All glass is good, wireless charging I don't care about. Hopefully the 8 will be worth upgrading to, have skipped the 6S and 7 and with cost of phones it needs to offer a step forward.
 
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Personally I like there being a bezel and I don't care at all about wireless charging. Hopefully it will retain the lightning port and the wireless charging part will be optional.

I think all-glass could look nice but obviously there are durability concerns. Glass can be very, very tough in the right circumstances, so you'd hope Apple have put a lot of thought into how they make it. I guess if it was as shatter-prone as some fear it would solve the debate over whether a phone had been dropped multiple times on hard surfaces though! 😉
 
I wonder - if people wouldn't speculate about the next iPhone one year in the future, maybe when it finally comes out everybody wouldn't be as disappointed?
 
Tork said:
Why curved?!?! I hope this isn't true. Been tried in phones before, and it's kind of an annoying "feature" with no real advantage that didn't catch on for good reason.
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I agree that the curved edge screen has very little purpose, or at least those of today that show tiny notifications are purely gimmick, but what Apple is going to use the screen at the sides of the phone for are on-screen buttons, further eliminating openings in the case.
 
Kabeyun said:
The point of wireless charging is completely lost on me. Is it that difficult to plug this thing in?? Lightning even made it so it doesn't matter which way the plug goes. Are we so incompetent or lazy that a charging mat (which has to be plugged in) is superior to plugging in a phone once a day??

You want the security of a physical plug. In a vehicle, unless you drive on level glass and never turn, you'd be forced to buy a holder. Overnight suppose you or a pet bumped your phone off the charging mat.

And how do you use it while charging? Gotta move both the charging surface and the phone. And to make a call while charging?? Lol.

Can we please leave inductive charging for our toothbrushes and stop the total war on plugs? Some plugs are just fine, and in fact better. This headlong, because-we-can, because-it-seems-cool charge into wireless land is absurd.

And while I'm ranting, please leave me a bezel. Please? Look at that photo again. See the way they have to hold that thing to see the whole screen? No thanks. Especially if it's all glass, no matter how many gorillas it's made out of.
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Kabeyun said:
The point of wireless charging is completely lost on me. Is it that difficult to plug this thing in?? Lightning even made it so it doesn't matter which way the plug goes. Are we so incompetent or lazy that a charging mat (which has to be plugged in) is superior to plugging in a phone once a day??

You want the security of a physical plug. In a vehicle, unless you drive on level glass and never turn, you'd be forced to buy a holder. Overnight suppose you or a pet bumped your phone off the charging mat.

And how do you use it while charging? Gotta move both the charging surface and the phone. And to make a call while charging?? Lol.

Can we please leave inductive charging for our toothbrushes and stop the total war on plugs? Some plugs are just fine, and in fact better. This headlong, because-we-can, because-it-seems-cool charge into wireless land is absurd.

And while I'm ranting, please leave me a bezel. Please? Look at that photo again. See the way they have to hold that thing to see the whole screen? No thanks. Especially if it's all glass, no matter how many gorillas it's made out of.
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They are talking about actual wireless charging aren't they? So you can charge it within a couple of meters of being near the charging unit so you don't have to place it on a mat you will have freedom
 
rippley5150 said:
I wish the McLaren thing would have materialized. An iPhone or a MacBook Pro in carbon fibre would be awesome!!! I wonder if a carbon fibre iPhone would smash like an F1 car? lol
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The issue for using CF, is that it is not recyclable, which is an issue for Apple.
 
Wando64 said:
While an article from 2010 suggests that Apple is been exploring solutions for Extended Wireless Charging (i.e. over the air) as far as I can see nothing in the current article indicates that this is what is being considered now.
The "normal" definition of wireless charging (without the word "Extended") assumes the use of a charging mat/base.
What makes you think otherwise?
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Because Apple explicitly ruled mat chargers out, and indeed they make no sense, being slower and bigger than a normal cable, with very little practical advantage over Lightning.
 
It's no secret they've been working with wireless charging. It's no secret that it hasn't been utilized because it wasn't up to their standards/vision on how it should work.
It will be interesting to see if they can make it happen.

As for glass, it looks nice but is fragile. That said my iPhone 4 got me 4 years with no breakage without using a case. I'm also interested in if they will utilize a new type of
Glass.
 
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