Apple Cancels AirPower Wireless Charging Mat

Exactly a year and a half after announcing it, Apple has called it quits on one of their coolest upcoming accessories. Apple has cancelled production on the AirPower Wireless Charging Mat, ending long running speculation around when it would actually release. This comes on the heels of the debut of the second generation Air Pods. One of the second gen Air Pods biggest selling points: the fact that they too, could utilize wireless charging.

Apple is citing the inability for AirPower to meet Apple’s “high standards” and thus, they canned the project. It’s a curious scenario behind what led to Apple cancelling the AirPower project, especially considering they were still talking it up as recently as a few months ago. One can only imagine what specifically went wrong, as the tech certainly exists for a product like this to be made. Samsung has a similar product used to charge their phones wirelessly, with a separate dock specifically for their Galaxy Watch.

Apple doesn’t usually have issues with producing hardware, so the complete cancellation of AirPower comes out of left field. It’s particularly odd that Apple waited so long before finally throwing in the towel. There’s still some packs of the new Airpods that mention compatibility with AirPower, so the decision to nix it altogether must’ve been a call made at the very last minute. Either way, one has to believe that Apple has some sort of backup plan in place, be it rolling with third party manufacturers or a different wireless accessory completely.