Apple's AirPower: 'Well and truly f**ked'

Posted by John Gruber on Daring Fireball, six months before Apple pulled the plug:

AIRPOWER: I wrote about AirPower’s absence earlier this week. What I’ve heard, third-hand but from multiple little birdies, is that AirPower really is well and truly fucked. Something about the multi-coil design getting too hot — way too hot. There are engineers who looked at AirPower’s design and said it could never work, thermally, and now those same engineers have that “told you so” smug look on their faces. Last year Apple was apparently swayed by arguments that they could figure out a way to make it not get hot. They were, clearly, wrong. I think they’ve either had to go completely back to the drawing board and start over with an entirely different design, or they’ve decided to give up and they just don’t want to say so.

My take: This whole field was more exciting when analysts were talking about over-the-air charging from a distance of up to 15 feet. Whatever happened to that idea? Meanwhile, I got tired of waiting and bought two inexpensive, third-party charging disks. They work just fine, no overheating.