2 of 5 Courant puts a high fashion spin on wireless charging: The leather-covered Catch:3 features a Qi-certified charger on the left-hand side (compatible with the iPhone 8, 8 Plus, and X as well as Samsung's Galaxy S8, S8 Plus, S9, S9 Plus, and Note 8), and a tray on the right-hand side for keys or other accessories. Consider this a charger you'll actually like seeing on your bedside table or desk. The recent release is currently available for pre-order and is scheduled to ship mid-October.<doc-sep>The most striking thing about about Wednesday’s iPhone keynote was not the iPhone XS Max’s massive screen or even the Apple Watch’s new heart rate monitor. It was a device that never made it, the long-awaited AirPower which was introduced at last year’s iPhone event. Following the unveiling of the iPhone XS, XS Max, and Xr, Apple refreshed its homepage to reflect its new handsets while concurrently eliminating all signs of the AirPower on their site. The website previously stated the charger would be available for purchase in 2018 — many (including, admittedly, us) took this year’s invites as further evidence of its imminent release — but this looks increasingly unlikely. This change furthers the prospect of a setback, which are increasingly common at the world’s most important hardware company. A January Wall Street Journal analysis found that the time between when Apple products are first revealed and when they’re shipped to customers has doubled under CEO Tim Cook. This omission raised eyebrows, as it seems increasingly clear that Apple SVP of worldwide marketing Phil Schiller revealed it long before the product was anything close to ready. In the 2017 hype video, the executive touted that it would able to charge an iPhone, Apple Watch, and pair of AirPods all simultaneously. Apple brought forth a slew of new iPhones, but no word on the AirPower wireless charger. But the three-way charger fell off the radar in the subsequent months until a June report alleged Apple engineers were struggling to fit all of the necessary components to make this product a reality in the available space. But at the time, those engineers reportedly still insisted on a September release at the latest. With two and a half weeks left in the month, the AirPower will seemingly miss this expectation. AirPower Release Date: Will AirPower Still Make 2018 Apple is in desperate need to roll out a proprietary wireless charger. The iPhone 8, 8 Plus, and X all shipped with built-in Qi charging capabilities, but users have had to exclusively rely on third-party chargers since their release. This will continue being the case unless the Cupertino-based company announces another product release late in the year, which could happen. Following the September release of the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus in 2017, for example, Apple held two subsequent events on November 3 and December 14 to reveal the iPhone X and iMac Pro. The year prior, three new MacBook Pros were announced in October and the AirPods were unveiled in December. The AirPower is seen as crucial towards achieving Apple’s goal of a completely wireless future. But unless the company schedules another press event soon, that vision seems to be on hold.<doc-sep>Apple / CNET WWDC 2021 Don't think of Apple's AirPower as an iPhone afterthought. The wireless charging pad, which the company announced almost a full year ago, could be an important piece of Apple's iPhone strategy for 2018. If Apple finally announces AirPower's sale price and sale date on Sept. 12 alongside up to three new iPhones for 2018, the device would work with the new iPhones -- iPhone XS or iPhone Plus, or whatever Apple will call them -- as well as with the Apple Watch Series 4 we expect, and 2017's Apple Watch 3, iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X. What makes AirPower so interesting is that the wireless charging pad doesn't just charge multiple devices when you drop it on top. It's that AirPower will also let the devices talk to each other to manage power consumption. All of Apple's wirelessly compatible devices will charge on Qi rigs from Belkin and others, but AirPower is Apple's specific attempt to make its mark on wireless charging technology, get more people to use wireless charging pads, and make some money in the process. Sarah Tew/CNET At its September 2017 event, Apple said AirPower would appear some time in 2018, but since then we've barely heard a peep. It's unlike Apple to announce a product and not deliver. But competition is heating up. Samsung has recently announced Wireless Charger Duo, a new wireless charger that will power up any of its compatible devices like the Galaxy Note 9 and new Samsung Galaxy Watch. Samsung's Wireless Charger Duo doesn't claim AirPower's powers of letting devices talk to one another. We've tried it, and it works just like any other wireless charger. Although we're not exactly sure when AirPower will strike, it's a good time to look back and note what we know about Apple's wireless charger so far. What is AirPower? AirPower is Apple's oval-shaped wireless charging pad that promises to work with the iPhone X, iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, the Apple Watch and a new wireless charging AirPods case that Apple will release some time in the future. AirPower and Apple's new iPhones mark the company's deep dive into wireless charging and its adoption of the Qi standard. Wireless charging has been built into phones for years, but until January, two competing standards, Qi and Powermat, slowed innovation overall. Now playing: Watch this: AirPower: Apple's charge-everything tech Now that Apple has thrown its full weight behind Qi, and Powermat has joined that standard, the industry can get to work on faster, long-range charging, and putting wireless charging stations in more homes, libraries, coffee shops and cars. You can see Apple's AirPower demo in the video below. Why is AirPower different than other wireless chargers? AirPower will charge multiple devices at the same time -- but other charging mats can do that, too. What's different here is that AirPower claims it can help devices communicate with each other to manage power consumption. We're not exactly sure how that works yet, but we're starting to get impatient. Apple's AirPower demo from last September shows the iPhone screen tracking all the devices currently on the charger, and their battery status. It isn't clear if this will work with non-Apple devices, or if the technology has been built into a current iPhone as well as the AirPower pad. How fast will AirPower charge my iPhone? Apple didn't share any details about the charging speed, but the Mophie and Belkin charging pads sold through Apple's site claim output of up to 7.5 watts, which is what the iPhone 8, 8 Plus and iPhone X are certified for. The Apple Watch, on the other hand, only supports charging up to 5 watts, which is as much as its charging base delivers. Now playing: Watch this: AirPower: Apple's vision for the future of wireless charging Read: iPhone 8 and iPhone X will charge faster with USB-C Will I be able to charge non-Apple devices on AirPower? AirPower will likely be able to charge any device that uses the Qi standard, but it isn't clear if Apple will prefer its own devices. Apple didn't respond to our request for comment. Will AirPower's benefits come to third-party chargers? Apple says that it's sharing its AirPower technology with the Qi standards body (called the Wireless Power Consortium, or WPC), so other vendors can incorporate Apple's tech in future products. See how the Huawei P20 Pro's cameras stacks up to the Galaxy S9 Plus, iPhone X and Pixel 2 See all photos +44 More When can I buy AirPower? As we've said, we don't know. Alongside the 2018 iPhones? Apple only has a few months left to make its self-imposed 2018 deadline. What about a new AirPods case that works with AirPower? Apple could also release AirPower around the same time it starts selling the AirPods wireless charging case. The two devices were shown off together and are meant to work hand-in-hand. A recent Bloomberg report claims that Apple may release a new version of AirPods "as soon as this year." So: Either a new version of the existing AirPods with a wireless rechargeable case, or maybe a whole new "AirPods 2." How much will AirPower cost? This is another great question we don't have an answer to. Last November, an AirPower listing was spotted on a Polish retailer's website for 999 złoty, which converts to about $290, £205 or AU$375. Other rumors claim that AirPower will cost closer to $199. For comparison, the third-party Qi chargers that Apple sells both cost $60, but these only work with one device at a time. Since Apple's AirPower can charge up to three devices, it'll likely cost more. iOS 12: Siri shortcuts, group FaceTime and "Memoji" -- Animoji of you. This piece was originally published March 25, and gets updated with the latest rumors and speculation.<doc-sep>
With a full year since its last mention onstage at Apple’s last hardware event, Apple’s AirPower wireless charger mat is still missing. At the company’s iPhone event this morning in Cupertino, there was little mention of the wireless charging tech present in the new iPhones, but more surprisingly there was not a single word said about the company’s AirPower wireless charging mat that it teased last year as coming in “early” 2018. Apple even had early AirPower mat samples in the hands-on area of the hardware event last year, but it seems delays have left the device out of this year’s show and pushed it further down the product roadmap. While Apple’s website did not show any details on the AirPower charger, there were details about a wireless charging case for the AirPods “coming in 2018” that is designed for the mat. What’s the problem and why the big delay here? Well, new charging tech is a major liability for any tech company, and Apple has been trying some ground-breaking things with the AirPower charger that definitely seems more complex than just sticking three Qi charger coils into a padded mat and calling it a day. First off, the big deal about AirPower is that it is an evolution of the Qi charger standard, (at least some of) the coils have to be smaller to work with the Apple Watch and new AirPods case and the pad also has to be capable of delivering a roughly full speed charge to the phone, something that is likely a major engineering stress test for thermals. What may have been the biggest challenge as a result is that Apple wants you to be able to charge three devices simultaneously without you having to worry about where they are on the pad. That means that unlike today’s Qi chargers, where you have to scoot your phone around to nudge into a position where it can charge, you truly should be able to just drop something on the pad and get to charging. Some of these issues were detailed in a report from Bloomberg earlier this summer. In past years, Apple had some issues with shipping both the AirPods and HomePod within the time horizon they had detailed earlier, but Apple gave an awful lot of details about this product in its tease last year and it’s peculiar that it didn’t even get an offhand mention at WWDC or today’s event. While one of Apple’s hardware devices shipping with a buggy version of iOS might lead to some late-night patches and customers unable to open an app, dealing with power management flaws is a liability cornucopia. If anything is seriously wrong or the wireless charging mat were to make a mistake detecting a device, the paired devices theoretically could catch fire. Given the challenges, it might make sense that Apple has been a little more careful with this one in the testing phase, but it’s also possible the issues haven’t been with design and are instead just with scaling manufacturing. We don’t really know because Apple has said squat; instead, they chose to announce the device last year, perhaps before they had an accurate scope of the issues left to tackle before shipping it.