Upcoming iPhones will offer wireless charging, says CEO of Apple manufacturer Wistron
Plugging things in is no fun, especially when a certain company refuses to embrace industry-standard plugs. Wireless charging is an obvious solution, which has been embraced by many Android manufacturers …
Context & Ripple Effects
The confirmation from Wistron caps a run of signals rather than starting one: Bloomberg reported back in early 2016 that Apple was working on wireless charging that works over a distance for iOS devices, and in February 2017 Apple joined the Wireless Power Consortium behind the Qi standard — so the supplier CEO's comment points to the near-term, contact-based version of that ambition.
It matters because the iPhone was the conspicuous holdout while Android manufacturers had already embraced wireless charging, and because Apple's eventual choices here shaped the whole market: MagSafe later underwhelmed a year after release over its limited ecosystem, before the consortium's Qi2 25W update saw major Android phones finally converge on the standard alongside the iPhone.
First-order effects
- Apple's next iPhone generation gains a feature its Android competitors already ship, closing one of the most visible spec gaps cited by switchers.
Second-order effects
- Qi-certified accessory and charging-pad makers get a vastly larger addressable market overnight once the iPhone joins the standard its Android rivals already support.
Third-order effects
- Apple's scale inside the Wireless Power Consortium turns its supplier-confirmed adoption into de facto standard-setting — the arc that ends with Android vendors aligning on Qi2 rather than fragmenting further.
The trend: Smartphone charging is consolidating around the Qi standard, with Apple's entry as the holdout-turned-anchor accelerating convergence across both platforms.