Report: Apple approved production of its wireless charging AirPower mat earlier this year, after announcing it in 2017 with a 2018 launch date
and not Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge : Apple's new AirPods come with a wireless charging case, Hey Siri support, and more battery life Chris Davies / SlashGear : AirPower with new AirPods caught hiding on Apple's site Luke Dormehl / Cult of Mac : New AirPower image discovered on Apple's website Oliver Haslam / Redmond Pie : Apple Approved AirPower Production “Earlier This Year,” Says WSJ Firstpost : Apple's partners get approvals to begin producing AirPower charging mat: Report Tweets: Mark Gurman / @markgurman : These AirPods were initially planned to go on sale last year. They're also working on a future version with noise-cancellation and water resistance. Those were planned for later this year, but would now imagine that's for 2020. Joanna Stern / @joannastern : .@trippmickle with some AirPower details https://on.wsj.com/2CtKkPQ pic.twitter.com/2qQFcUnjOO Nilay Patel / @reckless : Things Apple announced on consecutive days in the run-up to the actual event it is having on Monday:- a new iPad Air- an updated iPad mini- updated iMacs- AirPods with wireless chargingIn another time, that list is worth an event all by itself! Geoffrey A. Fowler / @geoffreyfowler : Also missing from the new AirPods: a replaceable battery. Products with sealed-in Lithium batteries are built to self-destruct after two to three years — and pose a significant fire concern for the recyclers and trash collectors. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... Mark Gurman / @markgurman : Feels like it probably is soon or not soon at all for AirPower. Seems like it was tied to the new AirPods. Now we have those. So it's either it's ready or it's far off enough that Apple didn't want to hold back the new AirPods any longer. Ben Bajarin / @benbajarin : Would have loved to have seen noise cancelling in the AirPods update but from chats I've had with suppliers getting noise cancelling in that small of a device is still a challenge.Perhaps with Gen 3. Mark Gurman / @markgurman : We're coming up at around the time that early AirPods buyers are seeing battery life noticeably weaken (it's been 2 years), so we'll likely see these do well as upgrades. People are addicted to them. https://twitter.com/... Sarah Emerson / @sarahnemerson : apple has harnessed the power of memetics for free PR by giving people something to photoshop dicks and stuff on https://twitter.com/... M.G. Siegler / @mgsiegler : By far the biggest news to me with these is the speed increase in connect time. I'm constantly switching between sources and it's an awfully slow (and buggy) experience right now. Versus, say, Bose wireless headphones which can remember and handle two device connections at once. http://twitter.com/... Sean Hollister / @starfire2258 : New AirPods, with an optional wireless charging case, was the perfect opportunity for Apple to re-introduce AirPower, too. It says a lot that Apple didn't do so. https://www.theverge.com/... Nilay Patel / @reckless : How badly does Apple want everyone to focus on the streaming service it's announcing at an actual event on Monday? “New AirPods announced in a press release” badly http://www.theverge.com/... Dan Seifert / @dcseifert : the new airpods look exactly the same as the old ones how will people know that I am richer than those with the old AirPods http://twitter.com/... John Paczkowski / @johnpaczkowski : By doing this, they've extended the typical Apple event press cycle from 1 week to 2 weeks. https://twitter.com/... Austin Smith / @awwstn : Yayyyy for new AirPods but nayyyy that they didn't include the rumored rubberized grippiness to stay in ears better. http://twitter.com/... Mark Gurman / @markgurman : New AirPods announced with hands-free Hey Siri, 50% longer talk time, and optional wireless charging case. Same $159 for regular, $199 w/ wireless charging. Looks like Apple just said forget it on AirPower (For now). No mention on AirPods page. Federico Viticci / @viticci : New AirPods! New H1 chip designed for headphones, Hey Siri support, wireless charging (Qi) case option http://www.apple.com/... http://twitter.com/... See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
AirPower has been Apple's longest-running vaporware saga: the project began as research into wireless charging that works over a distance back in 2016, was announced onstage in 2017 with an early-2018 ship date, then slipped so badly that by last September it had been almost entirely scrubbed from Apple's website, with sources calling the design "too ambitious" and reporting technical hurdles including a stripped-down iOS running inside the charger.
Today's report closes that loop: per the WSJ, Apple approved production earlier this year and manufacturing partners are cleared to begin building the mat. The timing matters because Apple just launched AirPods with a wireless charging case — the accessory that gives AirPower something to charge — and because the product's fate has become a public test of whether Apple can ship what it announces.
First-order effects
- Manufacturing partners can start producing AirPower now, meaning the mat should reach shelves alongside the new wireless-charging-case AirPods rather than as a standalone later release.
- Buyers who held off on third-party wireless chargers since the 2017 announcement finally have the official Apple option to wait for — or to stop waiting for.
Second-order effects
- Accessory makers selling flat wireless pads now face an Apple-branded competitor positioned as the seamless companion to iPhones and AirPods, pressuring them to differentiate on price or features Apple's single mat doesn't offer.
- The iFixit theory that AirPower's overlapping multi-coil design struggled with FCC emissions compliance becomes empirically testable: shipping units will either validate the engineering or surface certification and heat problems in reviewers' hands.
Third-order effects
- If AirPower ships well, Apple's pattern of announcing hardware before the engineering is settled gets reinforced; if the reported production approval precedes another delay, the announce-early playbook takes lasting credibility damage.
- A shipped AirPower would establish multi-device charging as a category Apple defines, pushing the broader accessory market toward mats that charge several devices at once rather than one-at-a-time pads.
The trend: Apple's hardware cadence is stretching the gap between stage announcement and shelf availability, with AirPower the extreme case of a product announced years before its production sign-off.