According to YouTuber and leaker Jon Prosser, Apple’s AirPower may return from the dead. “May” being, of course, the key word here.)
“The project is back on, internally,” he tweeted. “No guarantee that they’ll finalize and release it, but they haven’t given up yet and they’re trying to re-engineer the coils to displace heat more effectively. Prototyping is underway.
The AirPower was originally announced in September 2017 alongside the iPhone X. It was supposed to be able to charge a Qi-compatible iPhone, an Apple Watch, and a pair of AirPods (in a special wireless charging case) at the same time regardless of where they were placed on the pad. However, there was constant rumors of production, engineering, and manufacturing difficulties. Seems those rumors were right.
However, in March 2019, Dan Riccio, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, declared the project dead. “After much effort, we’ve concluded AirPower will not achieve our high standards and we have cancelled the project,” he said. “We apologize to those customers who were looking forward to this launch. We continue to believe that the future is wireless and are committed to push the wireless experience forward.”
