As some industry experts wonder whether Apple will add wireless charging to its next iPhone, others believe it will go all in — cutting the charging cord completely, just as it cut the analog audio port in the iPhone 7.
With each iteration of the iPhone, Apple seems determined to reduce the smartphone’s size and the number of physical ports it has.
The latest speculation — that the company may introduce wireless charging on its next iPhone — indicates Apple may be considering cutting wires (and another port) all together.
Earlier this month,Ming-Chi Kuo, a financial analyst highly regarded for his accurate Apple predictions, asserted that the next iterations of the iPhone will include wireless charging.
And earlier this week, it was revealed that Apple in January joined the Wireless Power Consortium (WPC), which promotes the Qi magnetic resonance charging specification.
While Apple is often a technology follower — preferring to let others push the envelope first before it moves into a market with its own advances — it does have a history of changing user behavior through interfaces. That may mean wired charging could be missing completely on the next iPhone, said Rob Rueckert, the managing director at Sorenson Capital, a private equity and venture capital firm.
“They forced users into a different model with the wireless Earbuds [AirPods],” Rueckert said. “If you buy an iPhone 8, or whatever future versions they have, are they going to take it to the point where they only allow wireless charging? ”
Apple’s AirPods, which use wireless Bluetooth to connect to a mobile device, ushered in iPhones without analog audio ports.
The problem with allowing both wired and wireless charging, Rueckert said, is there’s no benefit of one over the other; why would users pay for a separate wireless charging pad when the device still requires a wire to be plugged into an electrical outlet?
“If they still allow you to plug it in, users will have to decide if they want to buy the expensive charger — a feature I don’t find overly compelling,” Rueckert said.
Plus, magnetic wireless charging requires an additional element in the mobile device: a copper receiving coil, which takes up valuable real estate inside the ever-thinner iPhone.
Rueckert believes if Apple does choose to roll out wireless charging with the next iPhone, it’ll likely go all in.
