Apple confirms the death of the AirPower wireless charging mat

Apple has confirmed the end of the AirPower, the long-awaited wireless charging mat that was first announced in September 2017. Apple cited the main reasons for the cancellation was due to difficulties in bringing the company’s high standards to the product.

The ‘charge-everything’ mat was first announced during an iPhone X event back in 2017, stating that it would ship sometime in 2018. But the Cupertino company went silent about the project after that, until now.

An email statement by Apple’s SVP of hardware engineering read: “After much effort, we’ve concluded AirPower will not achieve our high standards and we have cancelled the project. We apologise 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.”

The AirPower charging mat was showcased as being capable of wirelessly charging an iPhone, Apple Watch and AirPods simultaneously. An innovation, tons of Apple faithful were looking forward too. The mat would be able to charge three devices simultaneously with unique technology that would utilise multiple coils.

Apple hasn’t officially provided any reason for the cancellation of the AirPower charging mat, but engineering roadblocks seem like the primary reason. Having multiple 3D charging coils in proximity can lead to overheating without proper power management.

All things considered, the AirPower charging mat wasn’t by any means a game-changing product for Apple. And will likely be forgotten in the new future, possibly as soon as Apple’s next announcement. While this doesn’t look good, considering Apple’s recent keyboard woes, it is much better to cancelling shipping of a product than ship a dangerous product. And if you don’t agree, just ask Samsung.