Apple Cancels The AirPower Wirless Charging Mat Project

Apple has made an official announcement to cancel AirPower, its wireless charging mat project. The reason for this cancel, according to the company’s Friday statement, is that AirPower failed to meet its standards and it won’t launch this long expected product.

Apple announced the AirPower back in 2017, the product has since been among the most anticipated products from the company. After promising to release the device within 2018, the tech giant pushed out that deadline.

About the reason for shutting down the project, Apple’s senior VP of hardware engineering Dan Rico said:

Usually, Apple only announces a product if the company is ready to release it, which makes the delay then cancel of the AirPower a black eye. However, this is not the first time the tech firm has made a mistake in the last few years.

Since 2013, Apple hasn’t made any major updates on its Mac Pro computer, which is famous among creative professionals. There have been several delays on launching its redesigns but it may eventually come in 2019. Furthermore, the iOS has had a lot of bugs, including the iOS 8.01 with an autocorrect bug and the iOS 12.1 with a problem in FaceTime feature.

Meanwhile, some Apple watchers think it’s a smart move not to launch an inferior device.

Carolina Milanesi, an analyst at Creative Strategies, said that Apple cannot release the AirPower if it does have overheating issue as in some claims. She added that in a market where there are already multi-device wireless charging pads, Apple can roll out a different design, but that would have been worse.

Previously, the company said the AirPower would support its newer iPhone models, the Apple Watch, the unveiled last week AirPods, as well as the AirPods’ new wireless charging case and be able to simultaneously charge multiple devices. This feature is already available in existing charging mats such as the Wireless Charger Duo from Samsung.

However, the AirPower’s capability is beyond mere wireless charging, it’s more about boosting communications between devices to monitor power consumption. In September 2017, when Apple unveiled the AirPower demo, it illustrated how the iPhone tracked all devices on the mat, showing their battery status. By then, we didn’t know whether or not the device would support non-Apple products or if the technology had come to the current iPhone and the AirPower pad.

When eliminating the headphone jack in the iPhone 7, Apple said the future is about wireless charging. The company said this move took “courage.” It has since released iPhones with support for wireless charging and offered a wireless charging case to come with its AirPods. AirPower was supposed to be the first wireless charging tech that Apple designs, though all of its wireless devices can work with third-party chargers.