Announced back in 2017, the AirPower was a special mat designed to charge multiple devices without the need to plug them in. Unfortunately, the charging mat faced problems with overheating, which was attributed to its dense arrangement of coils. Around this time last year, Apple decided to abandon the idea, citing the fact that it couldn’t meet its own “high standards”.
Now, Apple is reportedly picking up the project once again.
AirPower isn’t dead ?
The project is back on, internally. No guarantee that they’ll finalize and release it, but they haven’t given up yet and they’re trying to re-engineer the coils to displace heat more effectively. Prototyping is underway.
????? pic.twitter.com/tjbbViwGM2
— Jon Prosser (@jon_prosser) March 22, 2020
Since the current prototypes don’t support the Apple Watch, Apple will completely re-engineer the AirPower- which means we’ll see a whole new product all together.
Note: None of the current prototypes support Apple Watch – that’s their biggest hurdle right now.
They refuse to release a version that doesn’t work with Apple Watch.
They’re re-engineering from scratch. ?
— Jon Prosser (@jon_prosser) March 22, 2020
If the AirPower charging mat makes it to market, it would be the first product of its kind. Existing charging pads offer set charging points for specific devices, whereas Apple’s design gives the user complete freedom.
Source: Neowin