After months of teasing the AirPower Wireless Charger, Apple has gone ahead and announced that the device stands cancelled and will not be launched after all. First announced alongside the iPhone X in September 2017, the launch of the Apple AirPower Wireless Charging Mat had been long awaited by users. Apple promised that the device would wirelessly charge iPhones, AirPods and Apple Watch all at the same time. Now, in a statement to TechCrunch, Apple has said that the device did not meet the company’s high standards and therefore the project stands cancelled.
“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. We continue to believe that the future is wireless and are committed to push the wireless experience forward,” Apple's Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering, Dan Riccio, tolf TechCrunch.
Contrary to traditional wireless chargers that can charge multiple devices at the same time, Apple’s AirPower Wireless Charging Mat was considerably compact given it was supposed to have three coils embedded within it. With all three devices placed on the mat – the iPhone, Apple Watch and AirPods – the charging status of all the devices was to be displayed on the iPhone’s screen. While it sounded pretty nifty, looks like Apple could not achieve this vision in the end.
Multiple reports in the past indicated that the AirPower Wireless Charging Mat was set to launch later this year and some even claimed that the device had gone into mass production. Although Apple has not officially cited a reason why the device did not meet its “high standards”, TechCrunch notes that the company faced multiple engineering challenges and that the device ran hot because of the close proximity of the charging coils. It seems Apple’s decision to pull the plug on AirPower was very recent given that the materials provided in the box of the new AirPods mention the device. There’s also a picture of it on the box of the new AirPod cases.
Alas, the AirPower was not meant to be and Apple is sorry for the same. This is the second time this week that the company had to apologise to its users. The company recently apologised for the faulty design of its Butterfly keyboard on the MacBooks.