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Apple's AirPower Wireless Charger Is Facing Overheating Issues, Says Reports (cnbc.com)
Two separate reports are saying Apple's yet-to-be-released AirPower charger is facing overheating issues. The product, designed to simultaneously charge an iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods, was announced more than a year ago at Apple's 2017 iPhone event. Apple has yet to provide any additional information on AirPower, even during its iPhone event last week. The company even appears to have wiped all mention of it from its website. CNBC reports: Tech writer Sonny Dickson, who has a track record of accurately reporting on Apple, said over the weekend that Apple has struggled with heat management, which affects accuracy and charging speed. Dickson thinks it's unlikely Apple will make its end-of-year release deadline. Daring Fireball's John Gruber said something similar. Gruber said the charging pad, which uses a multi-coil design, is "getting too hot -- way too hot."
"There are engineers who looked at AirPower's design and said it could never work, thermally. ... I think they've either had to go completely back to the drawing board and start over with an entirely different design, or they've decided to give up and they just don't want to say so," Gruber said. Apple gave a broad timeline for AirPower's launch, saying it would go on sale in 2018. So it is still possible it can work out any issues before the end of the year.
"There are engineers who looked at AirPower's design and said it could never work, thermally. ... I think they've either had to go completely back to the drawing board and start over with an entirely different design, or they've decided to give up and they just don't want to say so," Gruber said. Apple gave a broad timeline for AirPower's launch, saying it would go on sale in 2018. So it is still possible it can work out any issues before the end of the year.
They have become so utterly fucking obsessed with building unservicable "thin" devices, that they literally cannot make a simple charging mat work properly- something numerous companies have already done.
Furthermore, their entire engineering department has to know exactly why this thing is failing- I'm willing to bet a few people said "uh, this isn't going to work" while they were building it, but for some reason they were forced to continue regardless. That means upper management is absolutely dead set on having the device fit inside some arbitrary physical volume, but the laws of physics aren't playing game so the device simply will not work.
Rather than making the device a bit bigger or even including a small cooling fan- they'd rather scrap it all together, because it doesn't fit into their current design philosophy of form over function.