In 2020, Apple upped their Qi wireless charging game with a proprietary version called MagSafe. In addition to upping the charge rate to 15W (admittedly not as fast as others were doing at the time), the MagSafe system included magnets for alignment and to securely hold the charger to the back of the phone. It works great, and I use that to charge my phone approximately 99.3% of the time.
Is it less power efficient than plugging in with a frustratingly outdated Lightning cable? Yes. Does it generate more heat, potentially degrading the battery faster? Also yes. Is it very convenient to just plop my iPhone onto a charger on my desk, in my car, or on my nightstand and not have to worry about it being ever-so-slightly misaligned and not charging at all? Oh my god yes.
And today, finally, we got the glorious news that MagSafe will be expanding to other devices because Apple is doing the right thing: they're making it a standard. In fact, Apple is providing the tech specs for MagSafe to the Wireless Power Consortium (WPC), where it will serve as the basis for the new Qi2 standard.
"The basis" might be inaccurate. Qi2 is, for all intents and purposes, MagSafe (with minor changes to the magnet arrangement), just open for all members of the WPC to use. And that's great news! While the first iteration of Qi2 will duplicate what MagSafe already does — magnetic alignment and 15W smartphone charging, the WPC is already looking ahead to faster charging and support for more devices like headphones, tablets, and smartwatches. We could be looking at a glorious future where any of the wireless chargers you own will charge any of the devices in your home, and that makes me happy.
While every iPhone other than the latest iPhone SE supports MagSafe and thus almost certainly Qi2 as well, it'll be a bit of time before we start seeing the wireless charging standard start appearing in other devices. The WPC expects the first Qi2-certified phones and chargers to be out in time "for the 2023 holiday season".
Source: Wireless Power Consortium
p.s. If you're an old-timer smartphone fan like I am, you'll recognize "magnets for wireless charging" as the foundation of Palm's circa-2009 Touchstone charging system. I still stand by my tweet:
https://twitter.com/derekakessler/status/601143322023825408Read more
Qi2 wireless charging with magnetic alignment is finally happening
Despite being unveiled back in January, it's taken until the end of summer for the MagSafe-based Qi2 wireless charging standard to show up in products — but now they're here!
CrackBerry Podcast #1: CES 2023 — Your Piss Is Unique
Yes, hello, and welcome to the CrackBerry Podcast. We know, it's hard to believe this is happening. But this is happening. Our topic for the day: CES 2023.
This is the best stuff we saw at CES 2023
CES is back, baby! The show's changed a lot over the years, but there was still a lot of exciting new tech to be found in Las Vegas — enough that we wanted to take a moment to acknowledge all the cool stuff with our own Best of CES 2023 awards!
Could AphyOS be the BlackBerry 10 successor we’ve been waiting for?
I met with representatives of Apostrophy at CES and received a first look at AphyOS — a new privacy-focused, subscription-based mobile OS that is expected launch later this year.