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Magnetically Attached iPhone 12 Wireless Charger Unveiled Ahead of Apple Event

dhoughal said:
How about not producing more per sold unit?

But I suspect we need a lot more forest fires and hurricanes until people start to ponder about their annoyance priorities.
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Sure. I am not going to buy a new iPhone because the one I have is great and I barely leave the house anymore. We are agreed. But since neither of us are going to stop the launch of new products any time soon, I think the relevance of that to the discussion is really very low.

Edit: Also, if you're concerned about waste and overproduction, you're gonna hate what literally every Android device manufacturer is going to do next year when they add this to every phone that doesn't already have it. Think of the shock and horror then? Especially because there'll be so much more plastic waste.
 
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Michael Scrip said:
True... but you can also do that with the existing cable. I use my phone plugged in quite often. Magic! :p

I see your point though.

One downside to magnets is when you lift your phone off the charging pad. Will the pad stick to it? That's the opposite of what I want from a charging pad. I want the pad to stay on the table when I grab my phone. That's the point of these types of chargers.

The Apple Pad better be heavy enough to stay on the table when you lift the phone. I don't want to be fighting with my charging pad every time I grab my phone.
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Apple’s solution to keep the charging pad from lifting off a table or desk when trying to grab your phone, is simple. Design a line of tables, desks, etc., that are fully magnetic that the pad sticks to. Of course this will also provide Apple with a new revenue stream, so win win for everyone!
 
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Open question: to those who have mocked me (or users like me) in the past for wishing a stronger push into R&D, cross-product innovation, simplification and industrial redesigns etc. while Apple is churning the same products YOY, as "wanting change for the sake of change", how can you honestly defend this gimmick without self-collapsing into cognitive dissonance?

This is the definition of change for the sake of change to upend user habits. Funny they'd rather do this before they remove the notch and add ProMotion.

Sinequanon83 said:
Why would it not be better to have wireless chargers that can magnetically attach to the phone instead of not?
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Why is this fantastical workaround better than simply sticking in a charging cable?
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jmgregory1 said:
Apple’s solution to keep the charging pad from lifting off a table or desk when trying to grab your phone, is simple. Design a line of tables, desks, etc., that are fully magnetic that the pad sticks to. Of course this will also provide Apple with a new revenue stream, so win win for everyone!
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Maybe they can design the tables to not get ring marks from the HomePod too.
 
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otternonsense said:
How is this fantastical workaround better than simply sticking in a charging cable?
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It's easier. That tends to be just enough to make something a better solution. And with magnets it would be even easier so it would make it a potentially better solution (having never used it it's hard to exactly say).

Now answer my question: Would it be easier or less easy if the Apple Watch didn't have magnets in it? Would it be a better solution if it originally did not have magnets and then they added magnets to it, given how it currently works? (I know this will require some extrapolation but it's OK you just have to be intellectually honest.)
 
Sinequanon83 said:
It's easier. That tends to be just enough to make something a better solution. And with magnets it would be even easier so it would make it a potentially better solution (having never used it it's hard to exactly say).
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But why? It's still an overdesigned, overengineered workaround to essentially do the same thing 🤪
 
otternonsense said:
But why? It's still an overdesigned, overengineered workaround to essentially do the same thing 🤪
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For the same reason you put a light on a case to indicate that the product is charging? Because it provides assurance to the user and makes it easier to ensure the operation completes successfully? These are basic questions you don't get to wave away by claiming they're "overengineered". Overengineered how? The AirPower pad thing, that was overengineered. How is adding magnets around something "overengineering" it? I don't think that word means what you think it means.
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dhoughal said:
Indeed. My criticism was not Apple-specific. Wireless charging is a waste, no matter which logo is printed onto the product.

https://debugger.medium.com/wireless-charging-is-a-disaster-waiting-to-happen-48afdde70ed9
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Ah well thank you for continuing to elaborate on your moot point. Thx
 
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Does seem like a great design. Instead of just picking your phone up, you will have to pick it up and peel this off the back of it now. Or if you forget its going to lift the charger which will fall then fall off an eventually break.
 
Sinequanon83 said:
For the same reason you put a light on a case to indicate that the product is charging? Because it provides assurance to the user and makes it easier to ensure the operation completes successfully? These are basic questions you don't get to wave away by claiming they're "overengineered". Overengineered how? The AirPower pad thing, that was overengineered. How is adding magnets around something "overengineering" it? I don't think that word means what you think it means.
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Ah well thank you for continuing to elaborate on your moot point. Thx
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Who's being moot? Are we playing with words now? The whole concept of a magnetic charging pad compared to a simple cable is the definition of overengineering.

You still haven't answered why it's a better solution and what problem does it solve compared to sticking a cable in a port, instead you keep going off on tangents.
 
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skiwildcat7 said:
I have a great idea: you connect a cable to the phone via a small hole in the phone and that cable is connected to the wall which delivers electricity over the cable at rates much faster than this supposed wireless charging. It’s an incredible invention let me tell you. I call it a “plug”.
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Do you also argue that touchID should never have existed? "I have to touch the phone to unlock it anyway, and it's less secure - now I have to worry that someone with my fingerprint might be able to unlock my phone! TouchID may be more convenient, but that's all it has going for it. I'll stick to my long random passphrase!"

A few seconds saved, a couple of times a day, every day, adds up.

I first used a qi charger that had magnets to align it to a phone in 2013. I had a Nexus 5 (yeah, I used Android then. In retrospect, the iPhone 5S would have been a better choice, but I was a poor student at the time, and the iPhone cost nearly twice as much. And was a nicer phone, and was also supported for nearly twice as long...).

But one thing that Nexus 5 had (that nobody made a big deal of at the time) was 4 small magnets around the charging coil, and the charger that was sold with it had matching magnets. Both phone and charger worked normally with other qi chargers/phones, but when used together, the magnets made the phone just snap into the correct position every time you put it down on the charger. It was so much more convenient than having to use two hands to plug / unplug a cable, without the replacement hassle of having to place things perfectly that plagued other qi chargers.

It didn't matter that it was slower than plugging in a cable, because it still charged to full overnight, and (unlike when using a plug) whenever I was at my desk, and put my phone down, it charged some more. Holding something in my other hand? Expecting to have to leave in a hurry and don't want to risk leaving my phone behind? No reason not to charge.

I'm sure Apple's version will be nicer. Their version of everything else is.

(Also, that Nexus charger had fancy adhesive to hold it to a desk, so you could pick up your phone without taking the charger with it. I expect the Apple one will have something similar, and is only shown sitting on the phone in the photo, because if the phone was sitting on the charger, you couldn't see the charger...)
 
Macropanda said:
Does seem like a great design. Instead of just picking your phone up, you will have to pick it up and peel this off the back of it now. Or if you forget its going to lift the charger which will fall then fall off an eventually break.
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They can still sell sell Qi chargers without magnets. A
Common complaint is people can’t use a wireless charger while it’s charging, for those people this is an option.

If the magnetic force is enough to hold a phone vertically then it’d also be great on a car dashboard or other scenarios where one may want the device to be vertical, but not want to have to plug in cables. In the car example there’s be no concern too that the charger would lift with the phone as it’s presumably be clamped down or affixed to the car.
 
This doesn’t look like a design/product produced by Apple. Zero thought to how this sits on a table vs setting your phone face down... Apple ships great experiences not single features. I’m not buying this as an Apple product.
 
dhoughal said:
Yep, and to get rid of this annoyance, let's buy a charging solution which is around 100% more expensive than a cable, produces a lot more electronic and plastic waste, and wastes a lot of energy to warm up your nightstand. Sounds very innovative.
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Do you use touchID or faceID? They also add electronic and plastic waste to just get rid of the annoyance of entering a password every time you want to unlock your phone...

Just like them, this isn't perfect. Ideally, your phone would just magically know when to unlock itself (and when not to), and just magically charge itself whenever it was near a power source. But it still makes using the phone that much less annoying.
 
otternonsense said:
Who's being moot? Are we playing with words now? The whole concept of a magnetic charging pad compared to a simple cable is the definition of overengineering.

You still haven't answered why it's a better solution and what problem does it solve compared to sticking a cable in a port, instead you keep going off on tangents.
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The thing with Apple and their innovations, especially when discussing something that hasn’t been released yet, is that people share their opinions on what they think is a good / bad design without fully understanding the product. Much like with the Lidar sensor on the iPad Pro, the big picture reason for it hasn’t been shared, so a lot of people simply say it’s not wanted / needed, and therefor a bad decision for Apple to include it.

Although I agree with others that wireless / inductive charging is a pretty wasteful thing, that’s not Apple’s fault. They had to begin offering Qi charging, because the market was already shifting that direction, and there were / are benefits to using Qi charging that make sense for Apple to be part of.

And if I had to guess, their adding the magnetic ring around the coil isn’t just so the charging puck sticks to it (which can be a negative in and of itself). We’ve already seen prototypes of iPhone cases with the magnet ring in them, which is interesting, because they allow for a case that doesn’t need to have a lip that wraps around the front of the device to hold it on. This alone should open up a lot of possibilities for case designs, as well as stands, mounts, etc., which gives other companies something new to innovate with.

I’m excited for what Apple is working on now in a way I haven’t been in a long time, and things like this magnetic connection is just a small part of it.
 
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jmgregory1 said:
The thing with Apple and their innovations, especially when discussing something that hasn’t been released yet, is that people share their opinions on what they think is a good / bad design without fully understanding the product. Much like with the Lidar sensor on the iPad Pro, the big picture reason for it hasn’t been shared, so a lot of people simply say it’s not wanted / needed, and therefor a bad decision for Apple to include it.

Although I agree with others that wireless / inductive charging is a pretty wasteful thing, that’s not Apple’s fault. They had to begin offering Qi charging, because the market was already shifting that direction, and there were / are benefits to using Qi charging that make sense for Apple to be part of.

And if I had to guess, their adding the magnetic ring around the coil isn’t just so the charging puck sticks to it (which can be a negative in and of itself). We’ve already seen prototypes of iPhone cases with the magnet ring in them, which is interesting, because they allow for a case that doesn’t need to have a lip that wraps around the front of the device to hold it on. This alone should open up a lot of possibilities for case designs, as well as stands, mounts, etc., which gives other companies something new to innovate with.

I’m excited for what Apple is working on now in a way I haven’t been in a long time, and things like this magnetic connection is just a small part of it.
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My good man, can someone please answer the question: why is it a better solution and what problem does it solve compared to sticking a cable in a port, without writing a side-essay about Apple?
 
otternonsense said:
...imagine what will happen if this phone ends up in the same pocket with your credit cards.
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Have you seen how many purses and handbags already have quite strong magnets as part of their design?

Indeed, my own front door key has magnets as part of its fundamental design.

The number of magnets around is such that magnetic stripes should already have been consigned to history.
 
So Apple is going to use the wireless charger design from the iwatch for the newer iPhone?

Is Mpow JP related to Mpow, which is a Chinese company?

MPOW JAPAN Co., Ltd.
Tokyo, Japan

Mpow Tech Co., Ltd.
Shenzhen 518103
Longgang China
 
I just do not really into wireless charging . A cord plugged into my phone doesn't bother me .🤷‍♂️.....plus often times I want to use my phone while charging it which I am unable to do while charging wirelessly .
 
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