nkedel

Unless you've got a whole house of iPhones, worrying about 6W vs 10W for a phone that's going to charge for an hour or two each day is worrying too much.

CPRich

I suspect there will be letter differentiators, like the current 5c and 5s. Maybe the 6 and 6L, or 6G. I've heard 4.7" and 5.5" - I've heard nothing about keeping an existing 4" form factor as well.

nkedel

That certainly seems likely, although one might hope for something more imaginative from Apple. Following it from a distance, I'd just heard about the phablet-sized one -- I didn't realize the base was going to be expanded as well.

I'm not buying it regardless, but thinking of the iPad Mini, perhaps they could have the iPhone Grande. (Maxi sounding awful, and Mega being an existing Samsung phone.)

Or perhaps not; too Starbucks?

SRQ Guy

That's a good point. I suspect the annual usage is almost negligible.

My Note II has a 3100 mAh battery. If I charge this battery from empty every day (unlikely since I tend to end the day at ~30% as I'm no gadget stud like ScottC ), I might generously use 3-4 kWh of electricity in a year. This costs less than $0.50 on average.

HDQDD

I ain't worried, just providing facts to correct some assertions in this thread.

Actually it's 6W vs. 16W. But that's just the power difference. So essentially, you're using almost twice as much power (10W) just to account for the loss. The current Qi standard is limited to 5W, so already it's lower than the standard iPhone charger (6W). I don't know whether the 5W is before or after the efficiency losses. If it's before, then that means it's only sending ~3.5W to the phone. In that case, you're using almost 3x the power to charge at 60% of the phones capacity.

Wireless charging also generates more heat which is not so good for Li-Ion batts.

From batteryuniversity.com:
"Lost energy turns into heat and a wireless charger can get quite warm during charge. Any temperature increase to the battery causes undue stress, and batteries charged on wireless devices may not last as long on a mat as on the regular plug-in charger. It should be noted that the heat buildup only occurs during charging; the Qi wireless charger will cool down when the battery is fully charged."

The real deal breaker for me is that it's slower than a standard charger. My phone rarely makes it through the day, and I don't generally have much time to charge on the road.

Back to the topic: I'm a feature freak, but this isn't a feature that I care about. It's not worth having a larger phone, or different materials to support a much less efficient charging process. I would much rather they simply invest in a better battery

ScottC

Again, your argument does not match my real life experience. The difference in charging time using the official LG wireless charger and the official LG wireless charging back is so close to the time it takes using the wired charger that any normal user won't notice it - I know I don't.

Normal users don't give a damn about efficiency, they want a 3 hour wired charge to be roughly the same with wireless. If one is 2:55 and the other is 3:15, they won't notice. They don't care about loss, efficiency or other factors. Plus, it is so much easier to just place a phone on the puck during the day and top it off.

Again - there is no good reason why Apple should not include wireless charging and catch up with the rest of the phone world.

Need

I kind of feel the same way too about wireless charging. There will still be wire, but instead of running into the phone, it runs into a charging pad. Both the charging pad and the extra stuff inside the phone are extra things that could break. I charge my phone at night, so plugging it in or putting it down on the pad doesn't really make much of a difference.

Now if my house is wired for wireless charging and all my devices will be charged while they are in the house (anywhere). THAT would be cool.

richard

Yeah, iTunes is horrible, and I just avoid it mostly. It is the WEAKEST part of the Apple food chain.

Charging doesn't bother me. I have a bunch of chargers that I got based upon recommendations here and plug into the nearest, and my 5S charges FAST.

Battery life is always the weak point of wireless mobiles. Apple has done a lot to make it better (the iPad for example) and alot depends upon usage and the carrier. I live far from the Verizon tower and as a result my phone discharges fast. So did my Galaxy Note 2, becuase it's struggling for signal I suppose.

It's that lack of support for Swype-style keyboards that has been the biggest daily bugaboo. I can't believe the emails I get from people all typed on their iPhone. To me it's a huge bother.

I bring my iPad along when I want a bigger screen. I found that I wasn't able to fit the GN 2 in my pocket and was always carrying it or leaving it someplace and it wasn't big enough to get more done than I get done on the 5S, so that's why the Phablet idea doesn't work for me personally.

nkedel

A lot of jeans, I'm guessing?

Funny that sartorial differences would drive this; I wear loose fit khakis and similar things, and with most of my pants I can fit the 8" tablet in a front pocket... no problem with the Note 3 there, or even a shirt pocket although it's tall enough that it overhangs the top.

There are also always belt-clip holsters. Probably not to many people's style preference any longer, but very practical!

Kgmm77

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3G: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 7_1_2 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/537.51.2 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.0 Mobile/11D257 Safari/9537.53)

As an iPhone 5s and iPad mini retina user I agree with the above that I have a zero interest in a larger screen and would really like the development balance to tip back towards battery life. Given one of the big developments of the last few years has been the rise of Bluetooth or other connected devices (Pebble, Fitbit, speakers etc.) I'm charging more than I ever have and I don't like it.

NFC I'd have assumed is a definite, but as a technology it seems to have lost the last 12 months (at least from an outsiders perspective).

I doubt I'll touch either the new iPhones or iPads, it's the watch I'm waiting for. As an early Kickstarter investor in Pebble it has felt like a true start-up experience with lots of highs and lows and only recently getting anywhere near a stable platform with a few apps that are starting to fulfill the potential. If Apple can do it right, it will be a game changer.

AnalogMan

One of the big benefits of wireless charging for me is ability to keep the battery topped off. I have a wireless charger on my desk at work (office job), one in the living room at home, and one in the bedroom. So my phone is almost always charging/charged and still within reach. This means I never run low on battery regardless of how much I use my devices, since I am always near a charger. Plus, I would rather not have the phone in my pocket all the time (talk about radiation exposure risk).

As there is not a lot of sustained charging going on with my usage model, the heat generated is pretty minimal. The phone is definitely cooler sitting on the charger than in my pocket.

This might not be important to some, but I keep my devices a long time, and ports do wear out. They are a pain and expensive to replace. Wireless charging helps me greatly reduce wear on the port. I can also put the phone in something waterproof and still charge it.

I believe the wireless chargers I have take in 2A but supply 1A to the phone. It's adequate to charge phones quickly, not so good for charging a discharged tablet, but that takes a long time even plugged in.

------

I am surprised people aren't more excited about the rumored sapphire glass. Gorilla Glass is kind of a big deal and sapphire is way better (my wife is a material scientist and she quantified it with fracture toughness and I believe Young's Modulus, aside from the scratch resistance from hardness that everyone knows about ) except for cost, which is not an issue for an Apple device. I actually think sapphire would be a huge improvement. I can stop using screen protectors and not worry about scratches.

HDQDD

It's not an argument, it's fact. If the Qi limitation is 5W and a device (i.e. an iPhone) can use more (6W), then your charge rate is at least 16% slower.

Again, there's no good reason for Apple to waste dev $ on a feature that would make the phone bigger, heavier, costlier, require different materials, and ultimately the vast majority of people don't care about. Instead spend that money on a better battery.

nkedel

That depends greatly on the model; I've done it on a couple of phones and the cost of replacement parts on eBay ranges from trivial to annoying, and the difficulty of opening the phone ranges from "really horrible" (my wife's HTC One -- I didn't even want to try after seeing teardowns) to "pretty annoying" (my wife's older Nexus S, the only one where I was actually doing it to replace the power cord) to "pretty easy" (my Note 3.)

Getting a relatively common phone and one that's relatively maintainable is a huge plus in my book. iPhone replacement parts are very easy, but from friends who have repaired older ones, they definitely are not designed to be easily maintainable. Still, because they're so common as individual models local shops tend to get REALLY used to doing common repairs.

AnalogMan

I would agree to the variation on degree of difficulty and expense. I have gotten really good at opening up Nexus 4's (my personal phone and the model I have start doing rehabbing work on), but the first couple I opened did not look good afterwards

Getting a mainstream phone is also a good idea. There are tons more available replacement parts, both OEM and aftermarket, as well as accessories. I had a really hard time getting replacement sim slot and case for my Blu Vivo.

To give some details on prices, iPhone 5 lighting connector flex cable is about $16, and Nexus 4 one costs about $18. Those prices don't seem to be moving down much despite the phones keep depreciating. I suppose those could fall into the annoying category, but considering the actual connector probably costs 25-cents, paying many dollars for the flex cable assembly feels expensive to me.

nkedel

How often do you break them? Samsung parts may also be a little cheaper; the Galaxy Nexus (I miswrote "Nexus S" above) one was under $10, and it looks like a Note 3 port is under $10.

Replacing the whole inside back was about $20 when I dropped my Note 3 and shattered the clear camera cover -- I could have also just replaced that smaller unit for about $6 but was uncertain of how easy the replacement was.