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What Finally Killed AirPower

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Re: What Finally Killed AirPower

#31

Post by rincebrain »

sp332 wrote: post #22
brian-armstrong wrote: post #11

So my phone is charged by a cable. It plugs into the wall on one side and then plugs into my phone on the other. This system works great - I plug my phone in when I go to bed and unplug it when I wake up. The cable is long enough to plug into my phone even if I want to use it in bed. It's easy, cheap and failproof. What is the draw of wireless charging? What is it that I'm missing? Did anyone ask for this?

I can slap my phone down on the charger next to my bed in the dark. I can grab my phone off the charger on my desk at work with one hand. Before wireless charging, it wasn't much hassle, and I only rarely had trouble with my phone battery dying. Now it's almost no hassle, and I never have trouble with my battery dying. It's just a nice quality-of-life boost.

Is that not something many people can do one-handed?

The last time I had any trouble doing that one-handed was in the era of proprietary inch-wide charge connectors.

Re: What Finally Killed AirPower

#32

Post by whynotminot »

brian-armstrong wrote: post #11

So my phone is charged by a cable. It plugs into the wall on one side and then plugs into my phone on the other. This system works great - I plug my phone in when I go to bed and unplug it when I wake up. The cable is long enough to plug into my phone even if I want to use it in bed. It's easy, cheap and failproof. What is the draw of wireless charging? What is it that I'm missing? Did anyone ask for this?

I think the real point is the eventual removal of the port altogether.

If you can sync your phone over Wifi, stream to audio over Bluetooth, and reliably and quickly charge wirelessly, then you can remove the port altogether allowing for thinner, more robust, more water resistant designs. It's probably also cheaper to boot.

That's the wireless future that I imagine Apple was/maybe still is imagining.

Re: What Finally Killed AirPower

#33

Post by itslennysfault »

brian-armstrong wrote: post #11

So my phone is charged by a cable. It plugs into the wall on one side and then plugs into my phone on the other. This system works great - I plug my phone in when I go to bed and unplug it when I wake up. The cable is long enough to plug into my phone even if I want to use it in bed. It's easy, cheap and failproof. What is the draw of wireless charging? What is it that I'm missing? Did anyone ask for this?

I agree totally. Not to mention that wireless charging uses about 40% more power. Which for charging phones is a small amount until you think of every person on the planet charging their phone every day.

Re: What Finally Killed AirPower

#34

Post by sneak »

slimsag wrote: post #26
darkpuma wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Cables are subject to breaking (specifically the connectors)" Apple cables are. Somehow I don't have this problem with other brands... ever.

The best way to make profit is to introduce both the problem and the solution.

The amount of money Apple makes from selling replacement cables due to fatigue due to inadequate (in their opinion “ugly”) strain relief is negligible. Please stop spreading this inaccurate meme.

Apple makes money because they sell metric shitloads of $1200 phones and $600 watches and, increasingly, software and services for them. Not cables.

Re: What Finally Killed AirPower

#35

Post by adrianN »

sneak wrote: post #34
slimsag wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best way to make profit is to introduce both the problem and the solution.

The amount of money Apple makes from selling replacement cables due to fatigue due to inadequate (in their opinion “ugly”) strain relief is negligible. Please stop spreading this inaccurate meme. Apple makes money because they sell metric shitloads of $1200 phones and $600 watches and, increasingly, software and services for them. Not cables.

I wonder how many people choose to get a replacement device when their cable breaks.

Re: What Finally Killed AirPower

#36

Post by quotemstr »

> The FCC rules for wireless charging devices like AirPower are quite strict, and limit exposure to 20 cm (8 in) above the device to 50 mW/cm^2.

Who's to say that 50 mW/cm^2 is the right field strength limit? Remember when we couldn't use cell phones on airplanes during takeoff because of the theoretical possibility that something, somewhere might interfere? As it turns out, there was no interference problem, cell phones were perfectly safe to use in that environment, and the precautionary ban just stalled progress without improving anybody's safety.

Maybe we're in the same situation here. I'd like to know what specific problem an EM field of the strength AirPower produced would cause in the real world. It's possible that we're weighing "backward compatibility" with existing EM-sensitive devices too heavily relative to technological progress.

Re: What Finally Killed AirPower

#37

Post by wwweston »

brian-armstrong wrote: post #11

So my phone is charged by a cable. It plugs into the wall on one side and then plugs into my phone on the other. This system works great - I plug my phone in when I go to bed and unplug it when I wake up. The cable is long enough to plug into my phone even if I want to use it in bed. It's easy, cheap and failproof. What is the draw of wireless charging? What is it that I'm missing? Did anyone ask for this?

With a cable, you have to put your phone in a place AND put something in a place in your phone.

With a mat, you only have to put your phone in a place.

Obviously the latter is life changing. ;)

Seriously, however marginal, it is arguably a gain, and ... marginal gains can be kindof nice if they don't force some other annoying tradeoff. For me that'd include an appreciable cost higher than the cost of a long-lasting cable, but YMMV.

Re: What Finally Killed AirPower

#38

Post by KingMachiavelli »

sp332 wrote: post #22
brian-armstrong wrote: post #11

So my phone is charged by a cable. It plugs into the wall on one side and then plugs into my phone on the other. This system works great - I plug my phone in when I go to bed and unplug it when I wake up. The cable is long enough to plug into my phone even if I want to use it in bed. It's easy, cheap and failproof. What is the draw of wireless charging? What is it that I'm missing? Did anyone ask for this?

I can slap my phone down on the charger next to my bed in the dark. I can grab my phone off the charger on my desk at work with one hand. Before wireless charging, it wasn't much hassle, and I only rarely had trouble with my phone battery dying. Now it's almost no hassle, and I never have trouble with my battery dying. It's just a nice quality-of-life boost.

This made a lot (more) sense when even corded charging was kind of slow and meant that the use time to charge time was pretty bad; ~2 hours to charge: ~12 hours to use gives an optimistic 6 use/charge time ratio, but now that fast charging and USB-C power deliver devices can charge in ~30 minutes and last ~20 hours that gives a use/charge ratio of 40. Given that if I have to leave my phone on a wireless charger for much longer; I greatly increase the risk that I'm picking up an undercharged phone.

But like in your use case, it's a nice to have thing that provides standby charging and can prevent your phone from at least loosing power over the day. Honestly, I think the best solution would be a USB-C dock so that you would have the convienience of wireless with the fast speed (and PC connection potentionally) of a wired connection.

Re: What Finally Killed AirPower

#39

Post by zaphirplane »

sp332 wrote: post #22
brian-armstrong wrote: post #11

So my phone is charged by a cable. It plugs into the wall on one side and then plugs into my phone on the other. This system works great - I plug my phone in when I go to bed and unplug it when I wake up. The cable is long enough to plug into my phone even if I want to use it in bed. It's easy, cheap and failproof. What is the draw of wireless charging? What is it that I'm missing? Did anyone ask for this?

I can slap my phone down on the charger next to my bed in the dark. I can grab my phone off the charger on my desk at work with one hand. Before wireless charging, it wasn't much hassle, and I only rarely had trouble with my phone battery dying. Now it's almost no hassle, and I never have trouble with my battery dying. It's just a nice quality-of-life boost.

Constantly recharging your phone is suppose to reduce your battery’s max capacity over time I.e your battery lasts less

Re: What Finally Killed AirPower

#40

Post by eclipxe »

tolmasky wrote: post #21
brian-armstrong wrote: post #11

So my phone is charged by a cable. It plugs into the wall on one side and then plugs into my phone on the other. This system works great - I plug my phone in when I go to bed and unplug it when I wake up. The cable is long enough to plug into my phone even if I want to use it in bed. It's easy, cheap and failproof. What is the draw of wireless charging? What is it that I'm missing? Did anyone ask for this?

The wireless charger is a better experience than putting a cable in your phone in my opinion, but the dock they used to include in the box is a far better than both. It was simple to put your phone in (as opposed to a cable that might fall off the table or move around), and kept the phone facing you making it easy to interact with while charging (unlike the wireless charger). But at some point they probably figured o…

They make wireless chargers in a dock form. I love it - same interactivity as a dock but easy to pick up and go.
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