Apple was more than a little late to the wireless
charging party, but that doesn't mean you should
disregard its massive influence.
Today Powermat, which is the only true rival to the
prevailing Qi wireless charging format, conceded
that Qi had essentially won the war thanks to
Apple's adoption of the format for the iPhone X ,
the iPhone 8 and the iPhone 8 Plus .
Image credit: Powermat
Powermat also officially joined the Wireless Power
Consortium (WPC), which is the group that's
primarily responsible for promoting Qi.
"Qi has become the dominant wireless charging
standard on the market and the recently launched
Apple iPhone lineup is evidence of this success,"
Powermat CEO Elad Dubzinski said in a prepared
statement. "Powermat will share technology
innovation to further unlock wireless charging
potential, and will expedite the growth of the
wireless charging infrastructure."
That's good news for customers, as it means there
will now be far less of a chance that your devices
won't be compatible with a certain wireless
charging pad. Frankly, it's already been this way
for a while, and Apple's adoption of Qi was just the
final blow.
Easy charging
Powermat's decision also simplifies matters for
manufacturers. Prior to Apple's entry into the
market, smartphone makers had largely tried to
cover all their bases by supporting both Powermat
and Qi standards.
Apple, however, chose only to work with Qi. As a
result, smartphone makers such as Samsung will
only have to worry about one wireless charging
format going forward (or at least until new
technology rolls out).
Powermat may not have achieved the victory it
wished for, but thanks to some smart planning, it's
still up and running.
Unlike that of Qi, Powermat's system relied on a
public network of around 12,000 chargers in the US
and Europe, and it simply updated all of them to
support Qi when Apple's latest iPhones came out.
It may be bruised, but it's not truly beaten.
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