Apple Joins WPC, Next iPhone Gets Qi Wireless Charging Michael Kwan February 13, 2017 News Seeing how Apple decided to axe the traditional headphone jack in the latest iPhone, encouraging consumers to use wireless headphones instead, it only makes sense that they want to do wireless charging next. We’ve heard for some time that the next iPhone could have wireless charging, but it doesn’t look like they’re striking out on their own with their own tech. The folks at Gizmodo noticed that Apple has officially joined the WPC list of members. The Wireless Power Consortium, which includes such notable names as Nokia, Sony, HTC, Belkin and mophie, is a group of over 200 companies and they’re the ones who champion the Qi wireless charging standard. For a while there, people had hoped that the iPhone 8 would get wireless charging such that you would just need to place the device in the vicinity of the charger for some over-the-air juice. Qi isn’t like that, since you still have to put your phone on a charging pad of some sort. That said,, it’s pretty clear that Qi is beating out Powermat as the de facto standard at the moment. While analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI has indicated that there will be three different versions of the next iPhone, all with wireless charging, other reports are now saying that only the smallest 5-inch model will get it. Of course, these are all rumors and hearsay until Apple makes the formal announcement. And they’ll probably say that they’re reinventing charging all over again or something. Share This With The World!
