Sources: Apple working on wireless charging tech for iOS devices that works over a distance, may be released as soon as next year
Apple Said Developing Wireless-Charged Phone for as Soon as 2017 — Technology could power devices further away than charging mats
Context & Ripple Effects
This 2016 Bloomberg report is the origin point of a wireless-power saga that ran for years afterward: Apple took the over-a-distance idea public in 2017 as AirPower, only for the multi-device mat to become one of its most visible hardware failures after the production-approval report preceded its quiet cancellation.
What makes the story worth revisiting is that the ambition survived the product's death. Apple shipped MagSafe contact charging instead, extended it into accessories like the magnetically attached iPhone battery pack, and by 2023 had pulled its design language into the industry itself through the Qi2 standard built on MagSafe.
First-order effects
- Apple's own hardware roadmap is the immediate stakeholder: the report commits it publicly to solving distance charging before any rival has shown a shipping alternative beyond close-range mats.
Second-order effects
- Accessory and charging-mat makers face a fork — build for whatever proprietary system Apple lands on, or wait for it to standardize, a tension that later resolved in Apple's favor when Qi2 adopted MagSafe.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, Apple's repeated failures and restarts in wireless power end up setting the de facto charging standard for the whole device ecosystem, with the consortium ratifying what Apple ships rather than the reverse.
The trend: Wireless power is consolidating around Apple's design choices, as a decade of internal attempts — from AirPower to MagSafe to Qi2 — converts one company's roadmap into an industry standard.