Apple on Friday cancelled AirPower, the wireless charging mat it first announced back in 2017. The cancellation was due to the company’s inability to meet its own high quality standards, reports TechCrunch.
“After much effort, we’ve concluded AirPower will not achieve our high standards and we have cancelled the project. 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,” said Dan Riccio, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Engineering in an emailed statement published by TechCrunch..
The AirPower was designed to simultaneously charge an iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods. Following Apple’s 2017 announcement and the delays that followed, numerous rumors of technical difficulties arose, while Apple stayed typically closed mouthed about the delays.
Rumors suggested there were issues with heat management, interference, inter-device communication and more. Apple’s desire to create a charging mat where an iPhone, Apple Watch, or AirPods could be placed anywhere on the mat to charge required the layering of charging coils, and that lead to issues even Apple couldn’t overcome.
Apple last week released their 2nd-generation AirPods which featured a wireless charging case, leading many industry observers to believe the AirPower would soon see a release. A release that never came.
The AirPower is the only instance this writer is aware of in the history of Apple where the company announced a product and then did not delivering.
