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Apple Cancels AirPower Product

techcrunch.com

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Re: Apple Cancels AirPower Product

#491

Post by Dylan16807 »

sneak wrote: post #376
developer2 wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> with known spies in it Worse than a simple information "spy" would be having a security engineer with intimate knowledge of Apple's security leave the company to co-found a new company whose entire business model is to sell expensive hardware to law enforcement that bypasses Apple's security. Oh right, that actually happened[1]. An Apple security engineer discovered–or baked in–critical security flaws at one of the…

The company does not own your brain; using experience with a system for hacking that system (on devices you own) is not illegal, nor should it be. Remember also that the entire concept of intellectual property is a legal fiction created to prop up revenue streams, as well.

> The company does not own your brain; using experience with a system for hacking that system (on devices you own) is not illegal, nor should it be.

Okay? But that's not what that company does at all.

Re: Apple Cancels AirPower Product

#492

Post by tomaskafka »

ulfw wrote: post #408
mackey wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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://…

I am sorry to say but that’s what happens when you don’t have a proper product management org. Unbelievable in a large company like Apple but they do not have a Head of Product / CPO and are basically still a Sales and Marketing company with attached Engineering departments. There has been something very very wrong with products not getting out the door at Apple over the last few years. How does it take years to upda…

> How does it take years to update a MacPro, a MacMini, an iPhone SE

Creating market hunger - these are all lower volume products for Apple, with no real competition, so I guess they are on a slow updates.

Re: Apple Cancels AirPower Product

#493

Post by mises »

sofaofthedamned wrote: post #327
mises wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether or not you agree with the direction in which they are taking their product, making a keyboard so thin that types as well as it does is quite difficult. The problem they have is literally because of stray dust specks.

So test it, and if it doesn't work then don't sell it? As opposed to users of the last 3 years of Macs being beta testers for their current flavour of stupid keyboard of the month?

Yes, pretty much exactly as opposed to that. That's why I'm giving them credit for it; maybe they've realized their users want a really high-quality product. This might even indicate that they're going to actually get the next macbook keyboard right (though that's still unlikely).

Re: Apple Cancels AirPower Product

#495

Post by kickopotomus »

Tempest1981 wrote: post #480
kickopotomus wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is it my understanding that induction rings can't overlap? They technically can and that is what Apple was trying to do but the overlap creates a lot of weird RF noise and makes stable induction difficult. > Do the laws of physics apply here? Yes, it's just a much harder physics problem.

If you send power to one coil, some % will be induced in adjacent coils, right? And I guess that radiates interference like an antenna? So question: could an inverse signal be applied to adjacent coils to cancel out the interference (from induction)?

I believe that is what Apple was trying to do, but again, it is a very hard, non-linear problem. By attempting to counteract that noise, you get a bunch of competing, variable magnetic fields.

Re: Apple Cancels AirPower Product

#496

Post by jjeaff »

rickycook wrote: post #348
jjeaff wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A piece of color matching electrical tape does wonders.

well yeah but applying electrical tape to a product does kinda ruin its aesthetic in almost all cases don’t ya think

I have a set of various colors of electrical tape. If the color is even close to the same, you can't even tell it was there unless you are looking for it.

Re: Apple Cancels AirPower Product

#497

Post by speedplane »

georgespencer wrote: post #451
speedplane wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Would be quite rare for a patent dispute to go on behind the scenes. Actually the opposite. Most patent disputes are resolved behind the scenes, long before anyone sues each other.

To my definition that makes it not a dispute! It's a commercial discussion with an agreement at the end of it.

>> Most patent disputes are resolved behind the scenes, long before anyone sues each other

> To my definition that makes it not a dispute! It's a commercial discussion with an agreement at the end of it.

Patent trolls send thousands of companies demands to pay royalties on a technology they never directly used. Fighting the troll costs hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of dollars, but they are only asking for $50k. Most companies begrudgingly pay. To me, that's still a dispute.

Re: Apple Cancels AirPower Product

#498

Post by ryanmcbride »

OkGoDoIt wrote: post #340
ryanmcbride wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always felt it was unnecessary too. A company I worked for a few years ago spent thousands to install wireless charging pads directly into the tables in every meeting room (4 floors worth of rooms). This was before any iphones had wireless charging though, so they also had these wireless charging adapters that plugged into iphones so that they could use them. That means that to charge your phone, you had to plug…

That company also had like 10 video dongles/adapters in every conference room, including ancient 30-pin connectors, but no USB-C which was the only thing most employee laptops supported. Yay technology!

Hi Roger!

Re: Apple Cancels AirPower Product

#499

Post by ulfw »

tomaskafka wrote: post #492
ulfw wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sorry to say but that’s what happens when you don’t have a proper product management org. Unbelievable in a large company like Apple but they do not have a Head of Product / CPO and are basically still a Sales and Marketing company with attached Engineering departments. There has been something very very wrong with products not getting out the door at Apple over the last few years. How does it take years to upda…

> How does it take years to update a MacPro, a MacMini, an iPhone SE Creating market hunger - these are all lower volume products for Apple, with no real competition, so I guess they are on a slow updates.

Well they will never become high volume if they get updated every five years or more - that’s for sure.

Re: Apple Cancels AirPower Product

#500

Post by paul7986 »

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.

They canceled it because the iPhone is going to become a wireless charging pad for your AirPods, watch and even another iPhone.

Samsung just released Wireless PowerShare as a feature in the S10 that allows you to share a charge and reports note this will be coming to the iPhone.

Incidentally and FML ... I was filmed pitching this idea to Intel and Mark Burnett (reality tv mega-producer) for the reality tv show, America's Greatest Makers. They reached out to me as they really needed fledging inventors. Overall we pitched sharing battery power between two phone cases https://ryanspahn.com/GetLeech .

I haven't looked but if Intel has patents that are from Sept 2015 and on then really FML. Otherwise what I thought was potentially a completely unique idea wasn't.

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