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Apple Cancels AirPower Product

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Re: Apple Cancels AirPower Product

#121

Post by Hamuko »

Bud wrote: post #114
Hamuko wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's nothing for Apple. They have released $2000 laptops that don't work well.

But not on purpose. In this case, after a sustained engineering effort, Apple finally and reluctantly concluded that they could not build this particular product up to their standard, so they decided to just not build it at all, instead. We should applaud that. That's how things should work.

>But not on purpose.

You could argue that after three models with butterfly keyboards, it's pretty purposeful. It's not like no one pointed it out to them.

Re: Apple Cancels AirPower Product

#122

Post by mackey »

minimaxir wrote: post #2

The whole AirPower saga is a weird event in product development. AirPower compatibility was highlighted as a feature in the packaging of the just-released AirPods 2 : https://twitter.com/itsnicolenguyen/status/11106569269650636... There has to be something that caused this abrupt cancellation.

I saw a report on twitter with serial numbers showing build dates of September and November, along with old copyright dates on the boxes on the new AirPods. Combine that with the "Hey Siri" being shown in "Gather Round" video in September, I bet they were hoping to ship the AirPods before the holidays, but were holding out hope that Airpower would work.

https://twitter.com/rouven81/status/1110980080170340352 https://www.macrumors.com/2018/09/12/apple-hey-siri-support-...

Re: Apple Cancels AirPower Product

#123

Post by pwinnski »

blhack wrote: post #20

I feel like I'm living in a bizzare-o-world here or something with this whole wireless charging thing. I had wireless charging in my Nexus 5 almost 6 years ago. Even back then, I bought a cheap wireless charger off of amazon for like $20, and thought it was a relatively interesting novelty. 6 years is an absolute eternity in tech, but for some reason this is being touted as some new innovative tech. I honestly though…

The point wasn't wireless charging. They've supported Qi charging for a while. The point was wirelessly charging several devices simultaneously with no need to consider the orientation the devices being charged. That's what turns out to be so hard to deliver well that they're giving up. And no, nobody else is doing it either. Yet.

Re: Apple Cancels AirPower Product

#126

Post by geddy »

tambourine_man wrote: post #33

Instead of reliable WiFi routers and induction chargers, Mac Pros and you know, laptop keyboards that you can actually type on… We get a credit card, news and streaming service that no one wants or understands. I really don’t get Apple's priorities recently. Which is a shame, since few companies step to the chalange of serving the expensive high quality tech stuff market. And what happened to the company that wouldn’…

> no one wants

Can't tell you what this phrase does to me. It's so prevalent in tech and gaming discussions and it'd be tough for me to think of a more holier-than-thou thing to say. There are people in the world who are different then you!

That being said, I didn't really understand the streaming service either, and I do agree that their priorities have seemed all over the place lately. I only learned of the upcoming AirPower product about 6 months ago, and having kept my ear lightly to the ground, I've heard all kinds of mixed things about it. I'm honestly not surprised it didn't work out - once I heard the main issue was heat, I knew there were going to be serious issues.

Even if it made it to shelves, anything that inherently generates heat, but one that also accepts variable devices, is just asking for trouble. I'm also not an electrical engineer, so maybe it's misguided.

Re: Apple Cancels AirPower Product

#127

Post by jwr »

slg wrote: post #4

It is a slimy move to wait a week after the wireless charging Airpods were released before announcing this. You can't tell me that Apple didn't know this was coming. What percentage of people who have bought new Airpods in the last week wouldn't have made that purchase if they knew AirPower was never going to be released? EDIT: Several people are responding that other manufactures make wireless chargers, so what is t…

I ordered Airpods with wireless charging without even considering if/when Airpower would ship (when they announced it, I thought about the engineering challenges, considered what I know about electronics, and figure they would need a miracle to pull it off).

I have other (single-device, of course) charging pads and they work great, so it isn't a big deal.

Re: Apple Cancels AirPower Product

#128

Post by bdcravens »

slg wrote: post #4

It is a slimy move to wait a week after the wireless charging Airpods were released before announcing this. You can't tell me that Apple didn't know this was coming. What percentage of people who have bought new Airpods in the last week wouldn't have made that purchase if they knew AirPower was never going to be released? EDIT: Several people are responding that other manufactures make wireless chargers, so what is t…

I bought a pair today. I mostly bought them for the incremental speed bump and supposed longer battery time. Otherwise I would have just bought a wireless charging case to go with my series 1 pair.

Re: Apple Cancels AirPower Product

#129

Post by spectramax »

eridius wrote: post #87
tambourine_man wrote: post #33

Instead of reliable WiFi routers and induction chargers, Mac Pros and you know, laptop keyboards that you can actually type on… We get a credit card, news and streaming service that no one wants or understands. I really don’t get Apple's priorities recently. Which is a shame, since few companies step to the chalange of serving the expensive high quality tech stuff market. And what happened to the company that wouldn’…

> that no one wants Be careful, just because you don't want this doesn't mean no one wants it. The HN crowd isn't Apple's target demographic with this stuff.

Yep, developers are a tiny tiny tiny minuscule percentage of Apple's revenue.

Apple's move towards services makes perfect sense. Apple now has a grip from the silicon to the end service. The entire stack. That's with the new move towards service starting in 2016 with Apple Music. That's a way to grow for a giant behemoth that Apple is.

I don't understand HN sometimes. We live in a tiny bubble and complain without understanding business, market and investor perspectives.

Re: Apple Cancels AirPower Product

#130

Post by randomacct3847 »

I haven’t found a situation where wireless charging is superior to wired charging, especially for my iPhone w wireless charging. The only situation is if you’re out and about and don’t have your cable with you, and in that case the only public wireless charging I’ve ever come across is at a certain Starbucks places, but it wouldn’t make sense in that situation why your own wirelessly mat would help since you probably wouldn’t haul that everywhere with you.

If you wirelessly charge then you have to lay your phone flat on the charging surface, whereas if you use a cable you can hold it and use it normally near the outlet.

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