Apple cancels AirPower, its hugely anticipated wireless charging mat for iPhone

Charger did not meet its standards, company says after more than a year of waiting

The Apple AirPower, a wireless charging system for iPhones, was unveiled during a media event in California on September 12, 2017 (AFP/Getty Images)

Apple has cancelled its AirPower charging mat, perhaps its most anticipated unreleased product.

The charger was intended as a way of charging an iPhone, Apple Watch and AirPods all at once. But after more than a year of trying, the company said the device could not be made in a way that met its standards.

AirPower was first announced in 2017, when Apple said it would be available soon. Since then, it has hardly been mentioned at all, though glimpses of it occasionally appeared in other products’ documentation.

Amid that silence, rumours repeatedly suggested the charging mat was proving harder than expected to manufacture, but also that it could be available soon. Now Apple says it has been cancelled, a year and a half after it was first unveiled.

“After much effort, we’ve concluded AirPower will not achieve our high standards and we have cancelled the project.

“We apologise 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 Apple head of hardware engineering in a statement to TechCrunch.

Rumours from inside Apple’s supply chain suggested that it was proving difficult to put multiple charging coils into one pad, as was required to charge the various devices.

Most Qi charging pads can only power up one device at a time, and require that device to be precisely placed – but Apple has promised the mat would charge all three at once, with no problems.