In the year and a half since Apple announced AirPower, the big question about the wireless charging mat was when it would launch. Fast-forward to today and we have our answer: never.
Apple today confirmed that it has cancelled its AirPower wireless charger. "After much effort, we’ve concluded AirPower will not achieve our high standards and we have cancelled the project. We apologize to those customers who were looking forward to this launch," said Dan Riccio, Apple's SVP of Hardware Engineering, to TechCrunch. "We continue to believe that the future is wireless and are committed to push the wireless experience forward."
AirPower was announced alongside the iPhone X and iPhone 8 in September 2017. The mat was designed to wirelessly charge an iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods all at once, and Apple originally said it would launch sometime in 2018. The year 2018 came and went without much news about AirPower, though, and Apple has remained fairly silent about the product until today.
While Apple isn't saying exactly why AirPower "will not achieve [its] high standards", today's report suggests that AirPower ran too hot because the 3D charging coils were located closely together and required cautious power management. Previous reports have also indicated that overheating was an issue for AirPower.
It's always a bummer to see upcoming products get cancelled, and that's true for AirPower. It looked like an attractive wireless charging mat for those in the Apple ecosystem. The good news is that while Apple may have cancelled AirPower, the iPhone and the new AirPods support Qi wireless charging, meaning that there are a number of other wireless charging pads for owners out there to consider.
