I appreciate that Apple was honest with their communication. Too often have I seen managers/CEOs employ the strategy of avoiding the hard conversation and letting the topic fade away.

I appreciate it too, unfortunately Apple is not always so transparent. One example that comes to mind is their 2010 promise to make FaceTime an open standard. It was Steve Jobs that made that promise in 2010 (one year before his death), and apparently a patent dispute with VirnetX may be to blame, but to my knowledge they haven't made any public statements about it since the initial promise.

If legalities are to blame it seems like that would be all the more reason to come out and say something along the lines of: "sorry everyone, we want to keep our promise but stupid software patents have made that impossible." Instead they've (to my knowledge—please correct me if I'm wrong) chosen to remain silent and hoped that people would forget.

I think to your point, that was how Steve Jobs use to run the company. Under Tim Cook's leadership, things have changed. When Steve Jobs was still around, I attended WWDC under the student scholarship, but he never greeted any of the students or ran any events. On occasion, there would be the "job fair." These past few years, Tim Cook has taken the time to greet the students, chat with them, and take photos with them. There's a softer side to the company now, and it's starting with admitting to failure and making mistakes.

I don’t have the source to hand, but I’ve read (or heard on a podcast) that Job’s made that decision on stage. It surprised everybody, including the dev team behind facetime. So it’s less a case of Apple remaining silent, and more Steve being Steve.

I don't know who made the decision (or when), but he did have a slide prepared that said "OPEN" [1] in big letters next to a FaceTime screenshot, which I'd assume means the decision was made at least before taking the stage.

[1] https://youtu.be/AmXc1Mjr5J4?t=5816

Attorneys usually advice against discussing ongoing legal matters.

When there is a dispute, sure.

If it's just "we don't have all the rights, sorry", there is no legal matter to worry about.

> I appreciate that Apple was honest with their communication.

why do you assume it was honest? they sold products based upon the impending release of this product, even including it on the packaging of products according to another comment. that was like two years ago? if i remember correctly, it even featured in one of their keynotes.

the excuse "it doesn't meet our standards" sounds like a nice cover for the actual answer.

anyway, i also don't understand their comment that wireless is the "future" for power transfer. i don't see how a significant loss of efficiency where power is just thrown away is the future.

Honest after the announcement you mean? So, thats, not honest.

They knew about it then and announced airpods with support for it, on stage...

Maybe not as notable as the AirPower, but, in addition to the Nexus Q, Google also promised object removal in Photos (demoed by erasing a fence between the camera and a little league player). That was at I/O 2017.

This sets appropriate expectations. If they don't know when it will reach the quality that they want to ship it is better to cancel it.

My guess is that it's not about quality but efficiency. Assuming the product works as advertised, someone might have pointed out that the power drawn is a lot more than the power supplied to the devices being charged (which to some extent is true for every wireless charger out there), and in a world where being sensitive to green issues is becoming the norm, this might have brought some bad press to Apple.

> Assuming the product works as advertised

The rumors are that it didn’t work as advertised, or even at all. Or when it did it could get hot and catch on fire.

I think Occam’s razor applies here.

Google had the curious case of the Nexus Q. It was announced at Google I/O and they took orders. Within a few days it was canceled. Those who ordered were refunded AND got their Nexus Q.

They usually only announce things that are being released in a week, or at most in a month or two. They've been breaking that rule a lot recently though. The whole services keynote was very strange for that reason.

Not anymore lately. There are a ton of pre-announcements under Cook (Airpower, Mac Pro announced years in advance, but also most of iOS 10 and 11 were announced 6-8 months before it made it - e.g. wireless fast charging). This whole odd services keynote had really nothing to launch besides their "News" (i.e. it's only magazines) product. The rest is coming 6+ months later

Apple has a history with the entertainment industry. They know that their cooperation means leaks. We already knew about the updated Apple news, there were rumors about the game subscription thing. We knew something was coming for a TV service because they’ve been buying content.

Basically they might as well have announced things because they were rumors about all of it and if they kept trying to keep it secret for months and months the chances are their partners would end up leaking it purposefully/by mistake.