Wireless charging is solvable but the sales pitch for AirPower was actually pretty fundamentally different; AirPower would allow for up to three devices without "sweet spots". Traditional wireless chargers require the device to be in a specific location and at a specific orientation (which is why many mats and Qi-enabled devices have magnets, to enforce this).

While the use-case seems trivial it's a pretty challenging engineering problem; a lot of people who saw the original AirPower announcement and corresponding patent drawings[1] claimed immediately that it wouldn't be possible or would be unbelievably hard without advances in materials and it looks like those criticisms are bearing fruit.

[1]: http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2018/07/apple-re...

It's specifically tricky because of the three devices charging simultaneously. As far as I know, no such charger exists. It's a hard problem to get all the circuitry to work correctly in a confined space and handle various wattages and currents at the same time.

"This wireless charging pad supports 3 Qi-Enabled phone to be charged simultaneously." https://www.amazon.com/Wireless-Charger-JE-Charging-QI-Enabl...

That looks like 3 distinct wireless chargers, all for phones. Apple was attempting something more ambitious: a large mat where you could drop 3 different types of devices in any location.

What is the difference for a customer between 3 distinct chargers and 1 huge for 3 devices? It's not that hard to put your phone or watch on marked place on the mat, they could do just that, and with their resources they could do it better than this small company (I see from reviews that it's slow charging). Their idea was really cool, but if they can't do it, then why not create something less ambitious and then iterate to maybe finally create The Best Mat Ever.

Apple is trying to solve the UX issue of orientation and position with wireless charging. Current wireless charging is pretty shitty in that regard, the idea being that a large device with a matrix of coils that can be intelligently activated based on where the device is located would solve the problem.

Any other solution would seemingly still have the orientation issue.

The seeet spots are actually pretty small. I use a Samsung horizontal charger with my iPhone, and even though the circular charging surface is significantly smaller than the footprint of the phone, there is a fairly small range of resting spots that will engage the charging.

You'd have to ask Apple, and I'm sure they've discussed it, but they don't generally spend a lot of resources on something that can be easily replicated.

This is why I've never really found AirPower to be that compelling of a product, even though I buy lots of Apple stuff. Yeah, it's a pretty nifty technological thing (apparently too nifty!) but … why should I care?

I nearly never want my Watch and my iPhone on a charger at the same time because I pretty much always have at least one of them with me. And I charge my AirPods case so rarely (I plug it in for a few minutes once a week or so when I think to), it's not really compelling to me that it charges it separately.

Anyway, I'm sure other people differ...

IKEA had been selling the NORDMÄRKE for at least a year.