The latest surprise from Apple’s September keynote is the AirPower mat, a new accessory that can wirelessly charge multiple Apple devices at once. Apple quietly slipped the announcement of the wholly unexpected product in toward the end of its special media event, which was held for the first time in Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino, California.
After
running through the anticipated list of product announcements including
the iPhone X, the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, and the Apple Watch Series 3
with built-in LTE, Apple’s SVP of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller gave
the audience a “sneak peek of the new wireless tech” that Apple’s been
working on. He revealed that all of the aforementioned products would
one day be able to simultaneously benefit from wireless charging,
courtesy of a mat called the AirPower.
What Does AirPower Do?
From
what little could be gleaned at the keynote, the AirPower is a simple,
oblong mat with an all-white exterior and a Lightning port, that vaguely
resembles the Apple Watch Magnetic Charging Dock.
The
AirPower comes with enough room to simultaneously charge your iPhone X,
Apple Watch Series 3, and AirPods (as well as their optional new
wireless charging case). These iDevices begin to charge as soon as they
are placed on the mat, doing away with the need for extra chargers and
outlets, which ought to make traveling with multiple Apple devices
easier. This also means that you can listen to music on your iPhone with
wired headphones thanks to the free Lightning port.
The
devices also apparently communicate with each other while charging
through a system interface, resulting in a more efficient charging
system.
The iPhone 8,
iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X all have glass backs to enable wireless Qi
charging. These handsets are compatible with Qi-certified charging
devices built by the likes of Belkin and mophie, but apparently Apple
had been secretly toiling away at its own wireless Qi standard charging
accessory. Apple plans to work with the Qi standards team at the
Wireless Power Consortium to incorporate some of the AirPower’s features
into future standards and possibly even “help move the entire industry
forward”.
AirPower Release Date
Unfortunately,
Schiller did not offer much more information about the AirPower’s
specifications, shipping timeline, and price. We also don’t know what
the specific charging times for the devices are. All we know is that the
AirPower will come sometime “next year”, meaning we’ll have to content
ourselves with third-party Qi accessories for now.
Idropnews
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