Oh, I get it, it's just that the feature is often talked about like it's the second coming of wifi. It takes me about a second to plug in my iPhone.

Once upon a time Wifi sounded dumb. It isn't that difficult to cable ethernet, and the performance is better with much less latency. The same goes for things like AirPlay audio and video.

Putting them everywhere, like the kitchen counter, home and office desks, car and bedside table would really lengthen the lives of phone batteries. If it really took only a second for people to do the equivalent of plugging in their phone they'd almost always leave them charging.

Ikea make furniture with built-in wireless charging. It's not remotely essential, but it's a nice convenience feature.