AirPower
The one that never was. What makes AirPower such a fascinating failure is that Apple teased this product to the public, something the company would only do if it were confident about bringing it to market. We knew exactly how AirPower was going to look, how it would work, and it had a name! Heck, the media even got hands-on time with non-functioning prototypes.
The moment Apple wishes it could take back occurred on September 12, 2017, during the launch of the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone X, and AirPods charging case. On stage, Apple promised a “lot of good devices” would come onto the market as a result of wireless charging being added to the iPhone 8 and iPhone X (to be fair, wireless charging had already been around for years). Apple wanted to join in on the fun by releasing the wireless charger to rule them all: a pad that could simultaneously power three devices—say, a phone, wireless earbuds, and a smartwatch.
Apple told us to “look for the AirPower charger next year,” but 2018 came and went without any updates. Instead of adding more details, references to AirPower faded away from its website in Back to the Future fashion. Then reports surfaced about the trouble Apple was having engineering the pad. Anyone who has used Qi charging knows that charging one device wirelessly generates considerable heat. Placing two more gadgets on a multi-coil surface, it turns out, was a fire hazard. It wouldn’t work up to the standards Apple set, and in March 2019, Apple canceled AirPower.
