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Why Apple Won't Adopt a Wireless Charging Standard
Lucas123 writes As the battle for mobile dominance continues among three wireless charging standards, with many smartphone and wearable makers having already chosen sides, Apple continues to sit on the sideline. While the new Apple Watch uses a tightly coupled magnetic inductive wireless charging technology, it still requires a cable. The only advantage is that no port is required, allowing the watch case to remain sealed and water resistant. The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, however, remain without any form of wireless charging, either tightly coupled inductive or more loosely coupled resonant charging. Over the past few years, Apple has filed patents on its own flavor of wireless charging, a "near field" or resonant technology, but no products have as yet come to market. If and when it does select a technology, it will likely be its own proprietary specification, which ensures accessory makers will have to pay royalties to use it.
So next year, Apple will "invent" it for the masses, using their own proprietary (read: expensive) version of it.
even AC understands this is no news for anybody let alone nerds!!
Charging isn't the only thing the cable does. When you want to sync those multi-GB's of pictures, music and videos or do an iTunes backup, you'll want the cable.
Yup, and then all the Apple-heads will flock to it, talk about how amazing it is (ignoring the fact that the same capabilities existed before, from other companies). Their social zeal and Apple's marketing will overwhelm the field, and at some point everyone will call all wireless chargers "iChargers" even if only half of them are, and the others are actually other brands / technologies that work similarly but pre-dated it. Such is the power - the evil power - that Apple exerts in our dark age...
William George
I just forgot to log in at work
Real Nerds know that you need AC for wireless charging, DC just won't cut it.
Seriously though, my opinion as a physicist/engineer is that wireless charging is a little dumb. It wastes a lot of power in an age where energy conservation is paramount, for what exactly? It's not like you can charge your phone from a distance. Inductive charging is a sensible tradeoff in things like dil^Welectric toothbrushes -- just because it can be done, doesn't mean it's great for everything.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
I understand. I haven't logged in to work for a couple of years, and it's been awesome.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
They're horrific for the environment because of their low efficiency. Rather than asking for wireless charging, we should be fighting to outlaw it. There's a reason Republicans are fans of wireless charging.
I recall something along these lines being said for things like larger screen sizes... until Apple decided to finally jump on the bigger screen bandwagon. Same goes for x86 processors I believe.
If wireless charging looks to be really getting societal acceptance, you can believe Apple will introduce it -- the same way they introduced NFC after being pretty much the only phone manufacturer not to support it. They'll go from "we're not touching it" to "here's the entire solution using that technology, instead of just bits and pieces you have to try and cobble together yourselves."
It's not like you can charge your phone from a distance.
That's coming, and soon. There's a standard coming now which does it at up to 10W, which is enough to run many small devices outright.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Their social zeal and Apple's marketing will overwhelm the field, and at some point everyone will call all wireless chargers "iChargers" even if only half of them are, and the others are actually other brands / technologies that work similarly but pre-dated it.
Sadly, that is probably actually what will happen.
When Steve Jobs died, major news sites like CNN ran stories proclaiming that he "invented the computer mouse". Steve Jobs. Now granted maybe someone typed "Jobs" when they meant to type "Engelbart" as a mere innocent slip of the fingers. Could happen!
Their customers (like me) are happy because the Apple stuff works well for them. There's annoyances like proprietay cables, and frustration over the reluctance of Apple to open up some of their APIs; we have custom keyboards and widgets at last, but still no Siri. But for me, those are minor. I've tried Android as well on a phone and tablets, and hated it. A friend of mine (who switched from Apple to Android) explained it well: "The advantage of Android is that you are free to tweak everything to your liking. The disadvantage is that you have to". For me, Apple's garden suits me well enough to not really even notice the wall that rings it. Complain about Apple's design choices, questionable business policies, their treatment of consumers, and the locked-down environment, and I'll agree. But my next phone will still be an iPhone because I want one that'll do what I want it to, right out of the box.
I did keep the Android tablet... the ability to just grab files from my local NAS, work with them, move them, that's something sorely missing on the iPad.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
That's pretty much it. People flock to closed, locked down ecosystems and beg to throw their money at anyone who will do their thinking for them. Nothing else really matters. People love golden cages.
Occam would like a word with you. In private.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
followed by lawsuits against all other wireless charging station makers
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
What mainstream? None of my devices (and I have a lot of them) have wireless charge options. There are aftermarket options but looking at the tech, it is incredibly wasteful and destructive to the batteries.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Only in the apple universe is taking functionality away (even recently - see new 1 port macbook) an "upgrade"
... and yet Apple products remain wildly popular. Perhaps Apple is on to something? (That something would be that many users value a simple, trouble-free user experience more than maximizing flexibility; i.e. if there are two ways of doing something, Apple will often decide which way is better and then drop support for the other approach. After that, future users of that product have one less decision to make, and therefore one less thing that have to worry about screwing up. It's the paradox of choice as applied to computer use)
It's not to everybody's taste, of course, but it's hard to argue with success.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Apple has filed patents on its own flavor of wireless charging, a "near field" or resonant technology
Resonant wireless electricity transmission was invented by Nikolas Tesla over 100 years ago.
but no products have as yet come to market
That part is just like Nikolas Teslas work too.
A lot of people have been working on this on the past decade. It's probably been displayed on every IDF (Intel Developer Forum) since by so many companies that I can't even remember the names of them all. That and Peltier cooling.
oh dont get me wrong, I do love apple. It takes a large number of people who i used to fix their things for free to telling them to talk to apple because i dont do it.
but as a power user, and i think thats who makes up the majority of this site, in no way does taking away functionality = an upgrade
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
oh dont get me wrong, I do love apple. It takes a large number of people who i used to fix their things for free to telling them to talk to apple because i dont do it.
but as a power user, and i think thats who makes up the majority of this site, in no way does taking away functionality = an upgrade
You're being far too reasonable. Where's the inchoate rage at the existence of any product not tailor-made for linux geeks? Where's the cognitive dissonance caused by other people liking something that you yourself do not approve of?
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
Real Nerds know that you need AC for wireless charging, DC just won't cut it.
Seriously though, my opinion as a physicist/engineer is that wireless charging is a little dumb. It wastes a lot of power in an age where energy conservation is paramount, for what exactly? It's not like you can charge your phone from a distance. Inductive charging is a sensible tradeoff in things like dil^Welectric toothbrushes -- just because it can be done, doesn't mean it's great for everything.
As a practical matter, the efficiencies are affected by the frequency of the AC Signal. At 50/60 Hz, there are significant losses to heat, due to poor power-factor numbers as well as problems with core saturation (esp. At 50 Hz). However, if you crank the frequency up to about 100 kHz, like a lot of SMPS designs, things begin to look a lot better. Crank it up again, to a few MHz, and the efficiencies get really good, and the components get pretty damned small.
But, as a "physicist/engineer" (which no one who was really either of those would call themselves), you should already know all this.
And beside all that, the measly few Watts that are needed to charge a phone in a reasonable period of time aren't going to deplete the planet's energy reserves anytime soon. Even a poor transformer operating in the 60 Hz world typically achieves over 80% efficiency in it's energy transfer from Primary to Secondary. So, extrapolating from the real-world example of the original 10W iPhone "cube" charger, you would only have to increase that to around 12W to overcome the 20% loss from a small air-gap.
I am NOT talking about charging-at-a-distance. The inverse-square law gets you pretty quick when doing that!
Yup, and then all the Apple-heads will flock to it, talk about how amazing it is (ignoring the fact that the same capabilities existed before, from other companies). Their social zeal and Apple's marketing will overwhelm the field, and at some point everyone will call all wireless chargers "iChargers" even if only half of them are, and the others are actually other brands / technologies that work similarly but pre-dated it. Such is the power - the evil power - that Apple exerts in our dark age...
If you really believe that, you need help.
Their social zeal and Apple's marketing will overwhelm the field, and at some point everyone will call all wireless chargers "iChargers" even if only half of them are, and the others are actually other brands / technologies that work similarly but pre-dated it.
Sadly, that is probably actually what will happen.
When Steve Jobs died, major news sites like CNN ran stories proclaiming that he "invented the computer mouse". Steve Jobs. Now granted maybe someone typed "Jobs" when they meant to type "Engelbart" as a mere innocent slip of the fingers. Could happen!
Excuse me, but now it's Apple's fault that CNN can't do research?
AC transformer PF is 1.0. AC Transformer efficiency is generally between 95%-99%. See a novice primer at https://www.physicsforums.com/....
Apple / OSX won the battle for Unix laptops and workstations from Linux and Solaris. That was a petty geeky group of people: developers, scientists, math/statistics people.... Apple wins among people willing to spend. The locked down ecosystem allows for a more convenient experience.
The average Joe wants to avoid thinking
This bears examination. Leaving aside the geek-elitism in this statement, could it not be the case that the average Joe wants to avoid thinking about his computer? The average Joe probably doesn't especially want to think too hard about his microwave oven, or his car, or his TV either. Perhaps the average Joe would instead prefer to think about something else? Something he actually wants to do, instead?
the ability to just grab files from my local NAS, work with them, move them, that's something sorely missing on the iPad.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/remote-file-manager/id608738784?mt=8
Explain why they need multiple circuit boards in the cable? Dynamic redefining of the pins on the lightning?
Er, yes? It makes engineering sense too, put some smarts in the cable and then you don't need to include (for instance) line out amplifiers, or HDMI output, or whatever, in the device itself. Seems reasonable enough to me.
I was using an Amiga when you Mac faggots were jizzing all over your black-and-white screens and fiddling with your 1 button mice. Macs4all? Fuck you. I prefer real computers.
Amigas had some spectacular hardware. I was even going to embed an Amiga 500 into a stage lighting controller I was designing while you were busy playing Battle Chess on your Amiga.
However, the Amiga OS was just an unstable piece of shit, and, well, we know what happened to Commodore...
And really? A one-button mouse joke and a run at sexuality is the best you can do? Are you mentally challenged,Mir what?
I believe it. He specifically claimed that Apple invented multitouch during the iPhone launch even though it had been around for a very long time. The media just refused to call him on his lies.
It's not like you can charge your phone from a distance.
That's coming, and soon. There's a standard coming now which does it at up to 10W, which is enough to run many small devices outright.
I doubt it. You either have to point a beam very accurately or you lose efficiency to cube of distance. Using a 100W to get 10W a meter away is just not very acceptable.
Personally, I hate fumbling with MicroUSB cables and my phone. I don't exactly have sausage fingers, but trying to put in that cable when I'm half asleep, the light on my nightstand is off (and I've been reading an eBook) and the end of the cable is loose *somewhere* on the nightstand is really annoying,
With wireless charging, I place the phone on the rather large/hard-to-miss charger pad, get immediate visual confirmation that the phone is in fact charging and therefore properly on the pad, and can go to sleep.
At the work desk, it's similarly practical: Incoming call, grab phone from charger pad, talk, hang up, put phone back on charger pad. Same thing for texts etc... with a cable or docking station, I find myself unplugging and re-plugging about 50x per day (seriously).
Excuse me, but now it's Apple's fault that CNN can't do research?
They're partially complicit, they could have contacted CNN to point out that they were wrong. They could have dumped out a press release on their website saying it was incorrect, but they didn't. They simply rode the train because it was the easiest thing to do.
Om, nomnomnom...
Excuse me, but now it's Apple's fault that CNN can't do research?
They're partially complicit, they could have contacted CNN to point out that they were wrong. They could have dumped out a press release on their website saying it was incorrect, but they didn't. They simply rode the train because it was the easiest thing to do.
Can you prove they even knew about one random news story among literally millions? And just how many of those news stories contained inaccuracies both big and small? How many hours of tracking down the right people at those news organizations do you think it would have taken, only to have them return a call several days later, after Jobs' death was already a non-story? And can you imagine how it was at Apple in the days following Jobs' death?
You live in some sort of fantasy world if you think Apple acted irresponsibly, or in a way contrary to any other company on this planet.
I wouldn't say I've been *missing* it, Bob...
Bark less. Wag more.
So:
2 W * (1/24) * 3e8 = 25 MW
That's an extra gas turbine, small wind farm, or similar, just to compensate for the losses of chargers, and not taking into account the fact that the peak power draw going to loss could be as high as 600 MW, or almost a fission-plant's worth.
Or, we could all not be lazy and just plug the damn things in.
Yes, I hate all of Apple's proprietary standards. Like how they used AAC for their iTunes store, or mini-DisplayPort for the video connectors. And then they used Thunderbolt. Oh, and now they're using USB Type-C ports.
If you're confused as to why I grouped USB Type-C ports in there, it's because I was being sarcastic. Contrary to popular belief, none of those things that I listed are Apple proprietary technology. AAC does not stand for "Apple Audio Codec", and it's a standard put out by the same people who put out the MP3 standard, but actually has had fewer patent issues. Mini-DisplayPort was created by Apple, but the turned it into an open standard that is completely free to use, with no patent issues. Thunderbolt is a standard that Intel created, though supposedly Apple helped develop it. It's being used on lots of non-Apple hardware.
I guess the MagSafe port is proprietary. It's also really good, and they were smart to develop it. iPhones and iPads have the Lightning port, which was apparently used because they found the specs for the current USB micro connectors to be insufficient. There have been some rumors that Apple helped develop the USB Type-C ports because they wanted a replacement for USB's current micro connectors that would be usable in their products. Their wireless communications are all WiFi and Bluetooth. A lot of their software is based on open-sourced software.
Yes, obviously not all of their software is open source, and they aren't producing commodity hardware. However, it doesn't really make sense to imply that they refuse to follow standards and instead create more expensive non-compatible alternatives.
20W output at 66% full load efficiency
Some transformers can have high efficiency when running at light loads - but that means you just paid extra for an oversized transformer. In general, copper losses go up with the square of load current and iron (core) losses go up with the square of voltage. Of course a 30MW transformer will be designed for higher efficiencies - no one wants to pay for 10MW of losses or deal with all that heat.
Worldwide domestic electricity consumption is about 2e16
Your calculation of waste is 2.5e7
There are other electric energy inefficiencies (such as your "always on" TV or computer) that waste much more energy to worry about. This is not even a rounding error.
In personal terms: My solar panels generate about 25 kWh per day... that should cover the 2Wh I waste charging my phone each day.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
You live in some sort of fantasy world if you think APL *WILL* act responsibly, even if they were aware of the situation.
No other company is makes huge margins and: misleads UK citizens about LTE. Yes, it had LTE... US band LTE, so it wouldn't work inside the UK? Price fixing e-books?
There's corporate greed, then there's the standard APL sets...
Overall, they have a better record of responsibility than most, and this thread was about a news story that Apple didn't even CREATE.
Nice strawman.
Those are some pretty reasonable points, and the cables do seem to be more fragile than I would like. That said, micro USB cables are a bit worse, and the lightning socket is a great deal more robust than micro USB.
The circuitry in the charging cable isn't the problem anyway - the problem is Apple's business practice of charging companies a licensing fee to use it. This is something that should probably be prohibited by law, but since it's not you can certainly see Apple's point of view (more $$$, yes please...). The IC probably costs about 10 cents.
So where are these circuits in USB, FireWire,or typical display port cables?
Well, USB has all the smarts at the other end of course. Display port cables do contain circuitry - or at least some do. USB to serial, or VGA, or audio, or whatever most certainly do contain circuitry. I don't disagree that it seems unnecessary to put an IC in the charging cable, but if you don't abuse the thing they do last.