6 thoughts on “Joanna Stern playdoughsplains AirPower”

1. The safety issue could have been Apple’s version of Samsung’s battery problem if they had tried to forge ahead anyway.

2. The safety issue could have been Apple’s version of Samsung’s battery problem if they had tried to forge ahead anyway.

3. Stern’s great at this.

4. I’d probably still buy an Apple wireless charger if they sold one, despite not being able to place the device anywhere on the pad.

5. I’m afraid Ms Stern left out what is almost certainly the most important problem, which is interference between the fields. Apple’s idea of putting many coils in the pad is great. That would let one, or maybe two, devices charge just fine, with some smart software, even if they were placed randomly on the pad. Unfortunately, that’s an unrealistically simple subset of the problem Apple was trying to solve.

   You can take a piece of film that shows magnetic fields and play with a couple magnets, let alone three, and quickly realize that the interactions between the fields immediately leads to a complete breakdown of the sort of simple “linear” field that would allow for inductive charging.

   This problem reminds me of the three-body problem in gravitational physics. Simple in principle; so-far impossible in theory. Apple was trying to model the problem, but to allow for user flexibility they would have to solve the model for every possible solution – that is, every possible permutation of device number, device order, and device location on the charging pad. I was hoping they’d pull it off, but I had no idea how. Their failure is not a surprise.

6. Regarding the Nomad, I think any technical problem that can be fixed with stickers isn’t that much of a technical problem. Either wait for them to apply the stickers or if you’re in a rush do it yourself. Don’t buy the wrong product for you because of a lack of stickers. 🙂

   …though it looks like the one with the Apple Watch charger is sold out anyway.