iPhone 16 Pro Still no MagSafe battery?

[SegNerd]

I’m kind of surprised I haven’t seen anything about this. When Apple discontinued their MagSafe battery pack around the release of the iPhone 15, I figured they must just be revamping it with USB C and a higher capacity. But here we are at the iPhone 16, and there is apparently still no word from Apple about this.

The best feature of the MagSafe pack was the two-way charging, and Apple has locked other companies out of using it. If Apple is out of the battery pack business, why don’t they just unlock it? Why would Apple create such a handy feature and then just take it away for no reason?

 

[NotApplicable]

Probably wasn't used by many people

 

[russell_314]

I’m kind of surprised I haven’t seen anything about this. When Apple discontinued their MagSafe battery pack around the release of the iPhone 15, I figured they must just be revamping it with USB C and a higher capacity. But here we are at the iPhone 16, and there is apparently still no word from Apple about this.

The best feature of the MagSafe pack was the two-way charging, and Apple has locked other companies out of using it. If Apple is out of the battery pack business, why don’t they just unlock it? Why would Apple create such a handy feature and then just take it away for no reason?

It’s hard to sell an external battery when iPhones have all day battery life for most people. The people that don’t get all day battery life want a larger external battery.

The one market for the MagSafe battery that might have been popular was for the iPhone mini with its lower battery life. Apple discontinued that iPhone so no market there.

Also IMO the whole concept is a bad idea. Using a small capacity battery and hindering it with a magnetic coil charger that has terrible efficiency. A better concept would be metal contact points on the back of the iPhone to match connectors on the battery. This would allow bidirectional charging without losses. Of course even this idea isn’t great because current iPhones have all battery life.

 

[bhall110]

The competition from anker is strong as well.

 

[subjonas]

Hopefully it’s still in the works as it was a pretty unique product. If they bring it back, I expect it to have USB-C and a higher capacity now that it no longer needs to fit the iPhone mini.

 

[subjonas]

It’s hard to sell an external battery when iPhones have all day battery life for most people. The people that don’t get all day battery life want a larger external battery.

The one market for the MagSafe battery that might have been popular was for the iPhone mini with its lower battery life. Apple discontinued that iPhone so no market there.

Also IMO the whole concept is a bad idea. Using a small capacity battery and hindering it with a magnetic coil charger that has terrible efficiency. A better concept would be metal contact points on the back of the iPhone to match connectors on the battery. This would allow bidirectional charging without losses. Of course even this idea isn’t great because current iPhones have all battery life.

I always wished Apple went with contact charging instead of inductive for efficiency reasons. It has to touch anyway.

 

[SegNerd]

But the point isn’t just whether Apple has a reason make one. What I’m asking is, if Apple doesn’t want to make one, why don’t they open up two-way charging to other companies?

 

[HouseLannister]

The competition from anker is strong as well.

Two recalls currently for different models. Anker is not on it’s A-game lately.