Apple’s Airpower wireless charger may be one of the company’s most visible failures. Announced back in 2017, the AirPower was a special mat designed to charge multiple devices without the need to plug them in. Unfortunately, the charging mat faced problems with overheating, which was attributed to its dense arrangement of coils. Around this time last year, Apple decided to abandon the idea, citing the fact that it couldn’t meet its own “high standards”.
According to journalist Jon Prosser “overheating” actually underplayed the issue, saying
Because the Apple Watch uses a tweaked proprietary charging method, it requires more energy to charge.
In previous prototypes, if you placed an Apple Watch on the mat alongside other devices, the entire mat would overheat, and in most cases, combust. (Not joking)
In March we, however, heard, from the same source, that Apple has resumed work on the project, and today he tweeted a picture of the charger.
According to Prosser Apple is fixing the overheating issue by using the 2017 iPhone processor, the A11 processor, to dynamically adjust power delivery in response to the heat generated in the charger.
It is notable that the matt appears smaller than Apple’s original prototype, suggesting Apple may be somewhat less ambitious than before. Hopefully, this will help Apple get the decidedly expensive charger to market.