What is the efficiency of wireless charging?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductive_charging
Of course problems like heating up the battery and the huge amount of power needed if everyone does it remain.
14.26 Wh * 900000000 * 365 (days) = 4684 GWh/yr
46% = 2154 GWh/yr wasted energy
That's about the total energy output of Madagascar with a population of 27 million people.
There's a lot of reasons why the above numbers are wrong but I just wanted to highlight that at current efficiency, there would be a lot of wasted energy. :)
I would be more concerned about charging speed and heating.
Inefficiency implies heating :)
And wow, do I love charging my phone using my laptops USB-C charger.. it's just so fast!
I don't really see the appeal of wireless charging. Faster direct charging would be a bigger win, IMO.
But thats not point here. Everyone is talking about the climate change and then we want to charge millions or billions of phones with ~50% extra power?
Good idea!
Symbols can hold power though.
For example, Samsung S21 uses a 4000mAh battery. iPhone 12 Pro uses a 2700mAh battery.
At 75% efficiency, it's effectively like charging a 3600mAh battery.
Both likely get a full charge every day. So, even with less efficient charging, you come out ahead vs. a Samsung device.
That's also assuming efficiency of the actual charging bricks is similar. Apple tends to be known for high quality and efficient charger bricks, so it wouldn't surprise me if that has an impact.
I know a few folks that moved to exclusively wireless charging because they broke the USB port on their phones over the years.
But it will give them some years.
If Apple, for example placed both a USB-C and lightning port on future phones, but the charge speed of the USB was crippled, I’d argue that they wouldn’t be compliant with the EU regulation.
Apple was on the USB-design committee (and lightning experience informed the design) and knew all the timing. The standard wasn’t even finalized for quite some time after Apple started shipping lightning.
Lightning has now been around longer than the 30-pin connector, I really don’t understand Apple’s reluctance. I go of my way to by Type C devices for simplicity’s sake, though still have to travel with micro-A, Type C, lightning, and a special watch charger, grr. At least I have only one type of power brick.
But it is Apple, who knows what they are going to do to avoid regulation.
Existing customers, yes. Apple are probably trying to grow their market share though, which means they also need to consider those people who have usb cables too.
That doesn’t sound right either.
Should a government be able to dictate the feature set of a class of devices?
Which is even more of a waste given the inefficiency of wireless charging and the kWh cost of electricity in an ICE.
Apple's timing with the lighting port wasn't great, with it arriving just before USB-C, and I imagine they're very reluctant to change the port on their phones because people already have lightning cables everywhere.
Personally I would love to see USB-C on my iPhone, but I look at my parents, and having the port change for them would be a pain in the arse. All their cables are lightning cables, they don't have any USB-C devices, and ofcourse, all of their cables are the ones that came in the box. I suspect a significant portion of Apple's customers fall into that category.