Apple Cancels Long-delayed AirPower Charging Mat (venturebeat.com) 106
One and a half years after announcing a wireless charging mat for iPhones, Apple Watches, and AirPods called AirPower, Apple has unexpectedly cancelled the accessory. From a report: It notably missed its expected shipping dates multiple times, including a potential release alongside the second-generation version of AirPods and charging case this week. "After much effort, we've concluded AirPower will not achieve our high standards and we have cancelled the project," said Apple SVP of Hardware Engineering Dan Riccio in a statement today. "We apologize to those customers who were looking forward to this launch. We continue to believe that the future is wireless and are committed to push the wireless experience forward." Mark Gurman of Bloomberg, adds, "This is fairly unprecedented and unbelievable. The AirPods even have a picture of the AirPower on the box."
Vaporware lifecycle ... (Score:2, Interesting)
And here we have a stunning example of the vaporware lifecycle ...
1) Coming real soon now, the super awesomeness
2) Coming a little later than planned, the mostly super awesomeness
3) Coming still further down the road, the almost kinda sorta super awesomeness
4) Coming very far in the future, something which may or may not resemble what we promised as the super awesomeness but with fewer features
5) Well, as it turns out, we have no idea how to build that super awesomeness after all and we're cancelling i
Re:Vaporware lifecycle ... (Score:4)
I found the charging mat to be rather lackluster on its initial show off. Part of the thing is, after the initial show, I haven't heard people waiting for this charging mat, most of them if they wanted wireless charging just kinda got one and started using it. Me I got 2. one for work from Samsung, and one from home. Mostly because the Samsung charger has an annoying blue LED to show it is charging, which is bright and hard to sleep next to my bed, while the one from home has a small red LED which is much easier to sleep with.
Re: Vaporware lifecycle ... (Score:5, Informative)
Everything in my living room has these; its annoying to watch tv in a dark room with blinding led's. My laptops/tablets also have these over the cameras and microphones.
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Makes nice round dots
Great theory but it's a bit more complicated than that in this case: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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I daub on them with a permanent marker. Orange on a blue one, green on a red one. Might take two coats, if so let the first dry properly.
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I haven't heard people waiting for this charging mat
I see you don't frequent r/Apple on Reddit.
Yaz
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> Mostly because the Samsung charger has an annoying blue LED to show it is charging, which is bright and hard to sleep next to my bed,
I know right?? What the hell were they thinking?
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Looks like they've hired Nigel Farage.
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I would argue that the Newton was pretty innovative.
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I would argue that the Newton was pretty innovative.
It was. It was also a long time ago.
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But well within the bounds of "never". I'd also suggest that, despite the slashdot delusion, that the iPhone was rather innovative. And how long before all credit cards start sporting the features of the Apple Card? (I included that last one to make sure that each slashdotter has a reason to "explain" why I'm an idiot fanboi.)
Yes, the Newton was innovative. It also didn't work very well (a co-worker had one back in the day) and was a commercial failure. Apple does better when they can put a shiny patina and world class marketing on someone else's idea. Once others established what a pad *should* do, and what people really wanted, Apple came back with the ipad and did quite well.
On the Apple card, I don't know, how long? According to this [apple.com], it's not a card, it's an app that lives on your iphone and does things similar to googl
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I would argue that the Newton was pretty innovative.
A mere four years after GRiDPad, so innovative
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I would argue that the Newton was pretty innovative.
A mere four years after GRiDPad, so innovative
As far as I can tell, the only thing they had in common was a stylus. But the stylus as a computing peripheral dates back to the late 1950s. It wasn't new when GRiDPad did it in 1989, much less two years earlier, when Apple's engineers came up with the idea for a stylus-driven tablet.
The GRiDPad was just a hardware platform — no operating system. It was essentially a 386 laptop without the keyboard, and with a stylus bolted on. It initially ran MS-DOS or Windows. A fairer comparison might have be
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Actually what's great on gridpad is GEOS. It supports the hardware (with the penmouse driver, anyway) and you can install Graffiti for Zoomer on it. I've got a unit set up that way, still. Needs new batteries, though. And the backlight inverters are fragile AF, in the bargain. These days though the display is just painfully bad compared to a cheap tablet or cellphone, so I should probably just give it away.
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And a Palm Pilot is just a notebook with electronics and a cell phone is a landline with the wire cut.
Apple has been innovative in the sense that they know what people want out of the product and develop it out. There were cell phones and smart phones when the iPhone came out (most notably Windows Mobile) but they sucked and nobody wanted to buy one, they were indeed a Palm Pilot and a Cell Phone in one package but the software treated it as two different modules, no integration, you had to sync contacts ma
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Things like the Treo had done this years before.
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Microsoft and Blackberry already had smartphones with e-mail and a web browser before the iPhone came out. Apple just made one that was a hell of a lot more usable.
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More usable than Microsoft, I agree. That was a very low hurdle. Windows Phone 5 and 6 were debacles, speaking as a (forced by my company) user. If your phone pops up "the audio driver has caused an error and will now close" and the phone WON'T RING until it's rebooted, then you've clearly picked the wrong phone OS.
But more usable than Blackberry? As a former Crackberry addict who was forced onto an iphone at another company, I have to humbly disagree. Apple had better graphics, but you could actually
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The crashed audio drivers happens rarely on my iPhone Se, only without the notification. Roughly once every 4 months. It would be much less annoying with a pop up at that frequency so it doesn't take me a while to realize all audio output is disabled on my phone until I reboot it.
What, seriously? Holy carp! And here, I thought only Microsoft was stupid enough to let that slip through QA. I mean, what's a phone that won't ring? A paperweight. I'm on-call, and a phone that refuses to ring is a seriously career-limiting accessory.
Re: Apple is on a downhill trajectory (Score:1)
Having a job where you are on call is career limiting.
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They've always just took existing things, put polish on it, and convinced people they needed it
In a way, that's what innovation is: taking either new ideas, or improvements on existing things, and putting them out there. Innovation is not invention, but application.
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Never innovative??
And yet somehow IBM copied the Apple ]['s slot architecture for expansion peripherals.
Nope, Apple was never innovative! /s
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The Apple II used a proprietary bus.
[[Citation]] That Apple copied the S-100 bus.
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The party's over. Turn out the lights. The days of Apple innovation are long gone. It was buried with Steve Jobs.
Heh. Reminds me of the Onion piece:
Apple Reveals Panicked Man with No Ideas [theonion.com].
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Better then pushing out garbage. (Score:2)
Now I think Apple Jump the gun, by showing off a demo a couple years ago, and really is messing up setting expectations. But if they couldn't getting it working well then they should just cancel it. I expect the issue is how sensitive wireless charging it. I actually like wireless charging, as most of the time a failure in my phone is often from strain from the charging connector, wireless charging reduces the stress on the phone.
However while I got it charging if I move the phone slightly it stops chargi
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So was the IIGS. Unfortunately, it threatened to outshine the crappy black and white Macs of the time for a lower price, so they just abandoned and largely ignored it; leaving their once loyal users high and dry. I bet that caused quite a few II users to upgrade to a DOS/Windows machine, or even Amiga back then.
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The issue is physics. Obviously, the idiots who specced this product believe themselves to be smarter than physics. And of course, smarter than their engineers who no doubt could have provided useful guidance if permitted. Product manager's point of view: obviously I'm smarter than you because I'm a manager and you're not, right?
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It takes courage to cancel a known defective product that fanbois would buy without even think about it. I mean, Apple never balked selling junk before... maybe finally Apple is giving a flying fuck about their consumers?
Or maybe, this one fails so spectacularly that it would be on the news. With videos taken via iphone.
Oooh, now I wish they'd released it.
I wonder if the idea is just not great (Score:1)
Even when I thought the AirPower might ship someday, I was dubious about the utility of it.
For charging an AppelWatch, I greatly prefer a stand that can have the face act as a small clock by the bed.
For charging a phone, I greatly also prefer a stand so that you can leave the phone more visible than laying down.
For the AirPods, if someday I have a wireless charging case I wouldn't care, a mat might be handy but anything would be fine (I've seen amusing pictures of them propped up just high enough on a phone
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This was different. This could charge multiple devices placed anywhere on the mat. You had a single charge cord and didn't have to worry about where they were placed.
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Hm. That's actually... an interesting idea. I'm sorry now they couldn't get it to work.
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Yep, I know it could do multiple devices - the thing is though, I'm not sure when I'd have need of multiple device charging! The only time I can think of, is charging the phone and AirPods at the same time, which would be mildly handy... I can see maybe putting it in the kitchen to put a few phones down while you made dinner or something I guess.
To me a flat mat always feels like a secondary charging device at best in any scenario I can think of where I am charging today.
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Do other people like and use alternative flat charging surfaces?
Admittedly, my iPhone 6S doesn't support wireless charging (although my Apple Watch does). But, even if I had a newer phone, I'd probably still be plugging it in for several reasons.
- I find wallet cases to be very handy, and the styles I prefer would not work with wireless charging (or, if if I found one that did, it'd probably also fry the various cards in the wallet)
- Wired charging is faster and more efficient
- My phone is my alarm clock... so, like you, I prefer using a stand where the screen is easily
Re: I wonder if the idea is just not great (Score:2)
I have three wireless chargers for my phone. All three put the phone in an upright position. One on my nightstand, one on my desk at home and one on my desk at work.
Slower charging via wireless is not an issue since I am in no hurry when it is on the nightstand anyway, and Iâ(TM)m at my desk for long enough periods of time that it just is not an issue. Everywhere else? Sure, Iâ(TM)ll charge with a cord.
I like the wireless because I can just grab the phone and go without futzing with a wire, and I
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Hm. I have a Note 9 and an induction charger. It's a flat, coaster-looking disc. I drop the phone on the charger at night and pick it up in the morning fully charged. Neither the phone nor the charging device get hot to the touch. My only complaint, in fact, is the bright blue LED on the charger that lights up the room to my dark-adjusted eyes. I'm thinking of putting a piece of electrician's tape over it. But other than that, the setup works absolutely as advertised.
Point is, this is a known technol
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I don't see Apple being concerned about hams... Oooh oooh... Maybe the RF it sprays prevented one or more of the Apple devices from working properly. For instance, perhaps the phone wouldn't receive calls while it was on the mat.
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This was my thought too. I've been using wireless charging for at least 2 years now, and it works flawlessly on the Galaxies I have. It's just so convenient, and if I need a faster charge, I can just plug the phone in.
From what I read they were trying to drop 3 coils in the mat, so that 3 things could charge at once. This, of course, caused interference, and the lead engineers said it wouldn't work. Management persisted, and years later guess what? That doesn't work.
What i don't understand is why they didn'
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Didn't fit the business model (Score:1)
They couldn't find find a way to make a stationary device with no battery or mechanical parts last less than two years.
Donâ(TM)t announce (Score:4)
Maybe Apple was better off being secretive and then surprising us? Wait until they get it right, rather than promising and then under delivering.
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But but but.... this is not rocket surgery. It's very straightforward. I mean, you have a point about promising and then under delivering. But this should have been a low hanging fruit. Put a coil of wires in a mat and sell it at an outrageous markup. A no-brainer.
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This fiasco was entirely the triumph of power point waving product managers with vision over engineers with some competence in physics.
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Small copy change (Score:1)
Re: Lawsuit? (Score:2)
They probably tampered with the election too.
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Maybe they were catching on fire? (Score:2)
Just sayin'. It's not like Apple to miss an opportunity like this.
Unexpected cancellation (Score:2)
I suspect a merger with Google is afoot.
Re: Unexpected cancellation (Score:1)
They will throw the towel in and just port Android to the Apple Phone. It wouldn't be hard, they use the same hardware as all the other mobile device makers.
SteveJobs cut the cord (Score:2)
Tim Cook brought it back
Leadership has limits. Tim has found his finally.
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âoeAfter much effort, weâ(TM)ve concluded AirPower will not achieve our high standards and we have cancelled the project,â Those are Apple's own words.
Re:False news (Score:5, Funny)
ÃoeAfter much effort, weÃ(TM)ve concluded Slashdot will support Unicode before we ship AirPowerÃ
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It's a direct quote from an Apple senior vice president, Dan Riccio. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]