Remember back in 2016 when Apple removed the aux jack from the iPhone 7? According to Apple’s Senior Vice President Phil Schiller, the reasoning was three-fold. His first reason was that lightning headphones would replace the need for an aux jack. The second was that there wasn’t enough space if the new iPhone 7 were to include the new dual-camera, engine, and larger battery. Today, however, it’s reason number three that demands the most attention – Apple’s bold claim that “the future is wireless.”
iPhone XS: An obituary for the headphone jack
Is the future wireless?The response to removing the aux jack was not a grateful one, and it spurred Apple to stand their ground all the more passionately. In September 2017 they announced Apple AirPower, a mat that could charge multiple wireless devices at once: Your iPhones, your Apple Watch, even your AirPods.
Aside from being a conceptually useful device (Samsung already has one), there was more behind the announcement than just some shiny new gadgetry – Apple wanted to show that they meant it when they said a wireless future was on the horizon, and that they wanted to herald it in. The problem was that at the time of the announcement, AirPower was far from ready. As it turns out, it never would be.
AirPower is officially canceled
At the September 2017 event, Schiller targeted AirPower for a 2018 release, which obviously did not happen. What we got instead were some vague mentions of overheating problems, and a discreet removal of any references to the product on Apple’s website.
Remember when @Apple said that #AirPower was going to be available in 2018? good times pic.twitter.com/Ez1FbNeO95
— João Eduardo S.Silva (@Jed__) March 29, 2019
Finally, on March 29 of this year, Apple had to admit defeat, claiming “we’ve concluded AirPower will not achieve our high standards and we have canceled the project. We apologize to those customers who were looking forward to this launch,” said Dan Riccio, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Engineering. He then continued to say, “We continue to believe that the future is wireless and are committed to push the wireless experience forward.”
The moral?
Why is this such big news? Were that many people really banking on a chargeable mat for their iPhone? It’s not so much that we care about AirPower, it’s that a wireless future has been the clarion call of Apple for years now. So the cancellation comes as a bit of a shock, and it’s pretty embarrassing, especially for it to happen before it even got a public debut. AirPower’s demise is definitely a setback for the company, and it’s going to hurt a brand that so infamously requires its users to stick solely to their own devices (you’ve got to jump through hoops just to get music on your iPhone without iTunes). Without a product like AirPower, Apple remains frustratingly dependent on third-party wireless chargers for their iPhones and AirPods.
The silver lining? At least Apple didn’t throw more time and money into a device that ultimately didn’t hit the mark. And at least they realized the flaws of the product before putting it on the market and getting a flood of angry customers. Instead, we can commend them for their maturity in recognizing the device’s issues and knowing when to call it a day. After all, “failure is the greatest teacher,” right? For now, let’s just hope that last month’s keynote didn’t feature any more projects doomed for the scrap heap. We’ll keep you posted here!
