In a Thursday report about the issues Apple has faced getting its AirPower wireless charging pad ready for the public, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman shared that the Cupertino firm had actually considered removing wired charging ability from the iPhone X by removing the Lighting connector.
During the development of the iPhone X, Apple weighed removing the wired charging system entirely. That wasn’t feasible at the time because wireless charging was still slower than traditional methods. Including a wireless charger with new iPhones would also significantly raise the price of the phones.
Gurman has confirmed that the move would have included removing the Lightning connector from the device. Gurman’s Thursday report also mentioned that Apple designers hope to eventually do away with all of the external ports and buttons on the iPhone. However, that is likely years down the road.
Apple has moved toward that goal a bit, as it has released the Apple AirPods wireless headphones, and will soon release the AirPower wireless charging pad. Apple design chief Jony Ive has made it known that his ideal iPhone design would resemble a “single sheet of glass.”
However, we’ve seen the hullaballoo over Apple’s removing of the headphone jack from recent iPhones, and there was an outcry when Apple switched to the Lightning connector from their traditional 30-pin connector setup. Somehow tough, I think we’ll all survive.
