My guess would be that driving that much power through direct connectors would clash with their goal to make everything phone-related increasingly waterproof.

With the purely induction-based method, you can, say, have connectors poolside (assuming you've got long and suitably grounded cables) with no concern from errant splashes.

The phones are already waterproof with electrodes on the outside of the device. Charging ports are still the outside from a poolside perspective.

Magnetic Qu charging is already a standard, they can build off it. It supports plenty of existing chargers. They released it before MagSafe. MagSafe just makes it more efficient in a way that doesn’t require more power.

Waterproof charge electrodes are thing for a long time. I think Apple loves glass on phone back so they can't adopt it.

I work in metal fabrication, rarely took my last MacBook to work, but the micro fine metal follows me home and ultimately resulted in destruction of that laptop due to the magnets in the charge connector.

Apple's phones are too fragile for my liking too, after having ruined a few in this environment.

I liked using Apple's gear, but it's all too precious-jewelry like for me in this industry.

If Apple did a rugged phone with a 13500 mAh battery like my current daily driver I'd switch right back.

What phone do you use that is immune to metal filing dust?

Seems like anything with a speaker would succumb, and its more of a problem with the case you chose than the device.

Or anything with a magnet in it like hard drives or fans. I think working in a metallic dust environment is the problem

Desktop PCs don't seem to have many issues in this environment, but they're stuck at our work stations, phones tend to get carried in to the dustier parts of the workshop.

Ulefone Power Armor 13, one year in no issues. Occasional blow with low pressure high purity nitrogen out of a cryo tank we have at work for the laser cutter.