Apple wasn’t playing around when they said that they want to cut the cord on your iOS devices. Apparently Apple is testing new ways to charge their devices without cables. You might be thinking to yourself that this is nothing new; there are plenty of products out there that already do this through induction. Prime examples are electric toothbrushes. There are also third party devices out today that you can attach to your iOS device to charge it wirelessly. Unfortunately they make your iPhone look bulky, and forget about trying to put a case on it.
In comes WiTricity, a new way to charge devices wirelessly without induction. It works as follows: “The magnetic fields of two properly designed devices with closely matched frequencies can couple into a single continuous magnetic field.” Basically they are creating a magnetic field between the device that requires charging, and the other device that is providing the charge. Apple is also looking at this medium for charging your keyboards and mice. This would be great — I finally won’t have to swap out rechargeable batteries on my Apple keyboard and mouse anymore.
I guess the real question is, will I need a new iMac to support this technology? And, the other question would be for the Windows users who use iOS devices. Will they simply be out of luck? Obviously this will be built into new iOS devices and Apple peripherals. Maybe Apple will provide a USB or even a Thunderbolt add-on for Macs that are not equipped with this technology. I would venture to say that they would not provide an add-on. Remember Apple is about simplicity, not complexity. Which leads to the second question for Windows users. Unless Apple provides an add-on solution, or PC manufacturers add this to their computers, they will still have to be tethered to their computers for charging.
It’s anyone’s guess at this point. In any case, I’m excited to see Apple looking into this new technology from WiTricity as a viable alternative to charging both iOS devices and their peripherals. Would this be something that would interest you in a “Post PC World”? Let us know in the comments below.
Via: MacRumors
Source: Wall Street Journal
