Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple Cancels AirPower Product

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 500 posts

Re: Apple Cancels AirPower Product

#51

Post by danpalmer »

deminature wrote: post #13
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…

Wireless chargers are cheaply available from many other manufacturers (much cheaper than Airpower was going to be). Selling on the basis of wireless charging is not slimy or underhanded.

Exactly. I bought the wireless charging case for Qi compatibility. No way I was spending £200 on an Apple branded charger, but wireless charging is a great UX and makes the AirPods feel like a nicer product.

Re: Apple Cancels AirPower Product

#52

Post by addicted »

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…

Apple will almost certainly allow you to cancel or return without cost. I dont think it will have that much of an actual impact, which is why I doubt that fewer sales are why they chose to announce now.

They were probably more concerned about negative headlines and media coverage leading up to the event when choosing to reveal this information a week after.

Re: Apple Cancels AirPower Product

#53

Post by ihuman »

ProAm wrote: post #30
brycethornton wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes

Interesting. I wonder what the high standard hang up was for apple then? It's an older technology (Qi), or I wonder if the hardware team was pulled off of new products to go back and fix the keyboards they are still having issues? Or maybe it was wasnt going to sell at a price point to bring in enough margin?

They were trying to use multiple overlapping "3D" charging coils so you could place multiple devices in any orientation, but supposedly it was causing overheating issues

Re: Apple Cancels AirPower Product

#54

Post by gumby »

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…

iphones have had this feature for a while too (though not six years ago). This mat was supposed to be super-wizzy but that's not to be.

Re: Apple Cancels AirPower Product

#55

Post by erobbins »

minimaxir wrote: post #16
ithinkinstereo wrote: post #3

For anyone interested in the challenges of true wireless charging (i.e., actual wireless, not induction-based), I highly recommend this blog from Paul Reynolds, who formerly led engineering at ubeam: https://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com

The problems with AirPower (likely multiple charging coils) are much different than the problems with uBeam (trying to circumvent the laws of physics ).

I forget about ubeam all the time, and once a year or so some article comes up and I'm reminded about them and how utterly stupid people have to be to have given them a single dollar much less millions.

Re: Apple Cancels AirPower Product

#57

Post by tunesmith »

thamer wrote: post #35
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…

The new AirPods can be charged on Qi chargers, that are available on Amazon for $10. No one bought wireless charging AirPods because of AirPower.

What's the downside of Qi chargers? (Assuming they didn't figure out some hardware problem that Apple couldn't figure out.)

Re: Apple Cancels AirPower Product

#59

Post by pkulak »

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’…

Gotta keep growing forever, and they are out of people to sell hardware to.

Re: Apple Cancels AirPower Product

#60

Post by Hamuko »

Swizec wrote: post #22
unethical_ban wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you explain how charging without cables, via induction, is not wireless? I can't click that link at work (uncategorized by proxy).

It’s wireless but not touchless. Some (many?) people conflate “wireless” and “over-the-air” charging. You can do OTA charging but that’s a tesla coil and not very safe.

>Some (many?) people conflate “wireless” and “over-the-air” charging.

Probably doesn't help to name your product "AirPower".

Post reply on HN