2 min read
Apple is one of the biggest smartphone manufacturers in the world, with its net worth topping $800 billion. Its smartphone, called the iPhone is one of the most sought-after smartphones currently available in the market. In 2016, Apple’s flagship smartphone, the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus shocked the entire smartphone market by removing the headphone jack and relying completely on wireless technology. Soon, other companies followed suit by introducing smartphones without headphone jacks. Now, a leak has confirmed that the next Apple flagship might revolutionize the industry one more time: A phone without a charging port.
Apple’s iPhones comes with Lightning Ports, a connector designed exclusively for Apple smartphones by Apple themselves. Now, however, Apple is planning to abandon the Lightning Port in favour of wireless charging exclusively. One of Bloomberg’s famous journalists Mark Gurman has reported this, quoting a leak which shows the upcoming 2018 iPhone X Plus is without a charging port. It’s important to note that this has reportedly only come under consideration and might not be implemented this year.
Mark has seconded this by saying “During the development of the iPhone X, Apple weighed removing the wired charging system entirely. That wasn’t feasible at the time because wireless charging was still slower than traditional methods. Including a wireless charger with new iPhones would also significantly raise the price of the phones.”
Mark has further confirmed that one of the major reasons behind Apple not ditching the lighting port as a whole is their inability to perfect the flaws in their upcoming high-powered wireless charging platform called “AirPower”. Apple is reportedly including fast wired charging in their upcoming models. Again, this is only due to the current flaws in AirPower and thereby the lightning port should be expected to stay until the AirPower’s charging efficiency matches that of Fast Wired Charging.
One major reason behind Apple moving to remove all ports on their products is so that they can stay in line with their policy of “Going Wireless”. The removal of the headphone jack shows how Apple started a revolution in the industry and the introduction of wireless charging exclusively is bound to do that as well. Question is, will this pass well with consumers?
