An interesting article in the business section of Saturday’s Daily Telegraph caught my eye – ‘Apple prepares to introduce wireless charging for its mobile devices.’
There are agencies out there monitoring patent filings and recently Apple filed a patent which allows for mobile devices to be charged wirelessly, by picking up small amounts of energy emitted by radio devices such as wi-fi routers, radio masts and television transmitters. This is not a new idea as Toshiba and even Apple have previously done work in this area but commentators now believe the new patent is a sign that the company is starting to take the idea seriously. Wouldn’t it be marvellous to never again run out of battery during a phone call and not arguing with your children on holiday over the use of the only adaptor you took with you?
For those of you who have read my second book, Driving into Darkness, you will realise this is the very technology mentioned in the story as being developed by Markham Microprocessors. Markham were set to make millions from the idea and I suspect that if Apple can overcome the difficulties of making it work and shoe-horning the device into the small space available on an iPhone, it will become as important to them as any of their hardware products.
If you’d like more information about this book, please see the Home page on this website.
Sept Update
Apple have now launched the iPhone 8 and X, both with the much heralded wireless charging. This was not as some commentators believed, pulling radio signals from the air, but placing your device on a charging mat, a mat that isn’t available until October 2017. What a disappointment! Induction charging isn’t new, nor is it revolutionary. If the current boss of Apple wants to be remembered in the same sentence as Steve Jobs, I know which development he needs to champion.
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