9 ms·

Neat, wireless charging, exactly like I had on my Nexus 5, around 5 years ago :) The best thing about the iPhone 8 is that it might finally make wireless charge

• whipoodle 9y ago
  The wireless charging is a gimmick. If you have a new iPhone, a new Apple Watch, and AirPods with apparently the proper case, then it could be compelling. I prefer to just have fewer things that need charging. As you point out, it could have been done earlier but I'm guessing they waited because the utility is so small. Whereas Android manufacturers seem to want the most features, the most checks on the list, even if they don't necessarily work too well.
  • jamesrcole 9y ago
    I haven't used wireless charging and am neutral about it. Why do you think it's a gimmick?
    • Karunamon 9y ago
      Generally you can mentally sub out "gimmick" for "feature I don't use or understand" in any discussion. It's equally as meaningful and conveys the same information.
    • majormajor 9y ago
      I've owned one phone with wireless charging and I have no particular need for another one. It'll be handy if it becomes ubiquitous - put the phone on a pad at the coffee shop is more convenient than carrying a cable to plug in to a USB outlet - but a relatively minor thing for me. I'm often not at my desk at work, so when I am, I want wired so it charges as fast as possible. Additionally, both for during the day and at night, charging with a wire has the big convenience advantage of being able to use the phone while charging it.
  • phil21 9y ago
    Wireless charging is not a gimmick. It's a category below Tivo for me in "things I never knew I needed but get really annoyed when without now". I'm on a Pixel XL now, and I greatly miss the convenience of simply having a couple charging pads laying out throughout the house/office. It feels like a chore to remember to plug in the phone every night. I won't buy another phone w/o Qi charging support.
    • notzorbo3 9y ago
      This probably annoys me more than anything about smartphones. New model of somesuch comes out, and it has a bunch of newer features, but a lot of features I've come to expect are suddenly gone. It was never that way with PCs. A lot of things about phones are unfortunately not like it was with PCs. I'm amazed to say it, but I've come to view IBM and Microsoft as fantastic drivers of open technology during the PC area.
      • TylerE 9y ago
        Well, it IS that way with PC's too, it's just been a bit slower. Try finding a modern motherboard with an AGP slot or a real parrallel port.
        • freehunter 9y ago
          Try finding one with a serial port. And that technology is still in active use in IT networking and embedded devices.
          • dagw 9y ago
            Try finding one with a serial port I just did. Found three or four modern motherboards with serial ports with much effort.
            • freehunter 9y ago
              Sorry for some reason I read "laptop". It's much harder to find a modern laptop with a serial port, and a desktop is not very easy to carry into a datacenter.
  • Corrado 9y ago
    I'm ready for wireless charging. My current phone (Android) get's a USB socket full of pocket lint every couple of weeks. Once that happens the cable won't go in properly and I have to spend a couple of minutes with a sharp stick and pick fuzz out of my phone. Wireless charging would solve this problem neatly, and since I already have a standard place for my phone I wouldn't even have to change my habits. :)
• wnevets 9y ago
  > Neat, wireless charging, exactly like I had on my Nexus 5, around 5 years ago :) Wow and Google got rid of it probably because the iphone didn't have it. I wish the hardware team at google would stop trying to copy apple and just do the things that make sense. Wireless charging and a headphone jack makes sense.
  • xd1936 9y ago
    It wasn't necessarily only because "the iPhone didn't have it". They chose to make the Nexus 6P and Pixel out of aluminum, and likely got rid of it because they valued that material choice over a glass or plastic back.
    • wnevets 9y ago
      > and likely got rid of it because they valued that material choice over a glass or plastic back. once again, probably because apple did it.
      • dabockster 9y ago
        Exactly this. I know someone who worked on the Android team around the time the 5x/6p was released. This person, though working for Android, still admired the iPhone greatly. I could see how this mindset transferred to the entire team.
• forgot-my-pw 9y ago
  Wireless charging was slow and inefficient. Is this newer tech better? I like that the charging bay is long so you can charge multiple devices. That's cool.
  • manmal 9y ago
    The charging bay isn't a thing yet, they plan to make this in 2018, but it seems they need to create a standard for that.
    • Matthias247 9y ago
      I didn't really understand from the video what this new standard covers that Qi doesn't. Is Qi lacking the feature to charge multiple devices at once and why? Does Qi maybe only have some single-link communication channel between charger and charged-device? I don't know anything about Qi, so any insights are welcome.
  • mastax 9y ago
    Nope, this is the same Qi standard that's been used in almost every wirelessly-chargable device. There's some competing standards like AirFuel (nee A4WP), which might be better. Doesn't matter if nobody uses them.
  • Androider 9y ago
    It's slower than a wire, but it doesn't matter in practice. You put the phone down on your nightstand or desk as you would have done anyway, and it charges. There's nothing to think about. It's like an electric car. Yes, it's slow to charge. But in practice it's always charged when you're ready to leave in the morning, so in daily use it's more convenient than spending 5 minutes at a fuel pump during your trip.
    • mtgx 9y ago
      I'm just glad at least Tesla doesn't seem to do planned obsolescence with batteries, the way smartphone OEMs do with their battery irreplaceable smartphones that seem to last 2 years before the battery degrades significantly. Tesla's seem to lose about 5% after 10 years
• Osmium 9y ago
  > Neat, wireless charging, exactly like I had on my Nexus 5, around 5 years ago :) And I think we can all be grateful Apple decided to go with the Qi standard here rather than roll their own! What a mess that would have been...
  • jonursenbach 9y ago
    Remains to be seen if this Airpower thing will be that.
    • Osmium 9y ago
      That's true, but that sounds more like an additional layer to communicate charging info, negotiate which devices should get more power, etc. I do half-suspect Apple probably tried coming up with a better solution (e.g. one not involving a charging mat), but ran into technical (probably laws-of-physics) challenges and went with Qi instead, because otherwise there's really no reason they couldn't have done this earlier. Or perhaps they just needed the time to re-tool for a glass case, who knows.
      • ineptech 9y ago
        The answer to why it took so long may not be any more complicated than "Apple charging cables are notoriously short-lived and surprisingly expensive."
    • tw04 9y ago
      Airpower is exactly that and they said it during the keynote. They promised to work to make some of it a part of the standard eventually. You know how that goes...
      • osxrand 9y ago
        Why did they not name it Apple Juice instead of Airpower? :) If you're referring to the FaceTime announcement, it was a third party that forced them to keep it closed (from memory).
• theshrike79 9y ago
  Wireless charging will only work if it's everywhere. This new iPhone (and all future models) will make sure it catches on. McDonalds and Starbucks _will_ have Qi charging tables by the end of next year.
  • BinaryIdiot 9y ago
    Many locations of both already have this and have for quite some time. But you're right; maybe this will speed up their deployment of wireless charging. It was really cool to be able to go into a Starbucks and, while waiting for a drink, drop my Android on the table in front of me and let it charge. Now we just need to get laptops on board with this.
    • freehunter 9y ago
      >Many locations of both In NYC and San Francisco, sure. Technology rolls out to the flyover states a little slower, though. Apple helps accelerate it a bit more. I'm willing to bet if I asked about Qi charging in the McDonalds in Brodhead Wisconsin, they would not have it. A year from now, though, is a far better chance.
  • Androider 9y ago
    Starbucks has Qi integrated tables all over the place in NYC today.
    • sahaskatta 9y ago
      Are you sure those are Qi? The ones in Silicon Valley locations are PMA. https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/starbucks-wireless-charging-hands-on/ https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/starbucks-wireless-c...
      • rodiger 9y ago
        They worked with my Galaxy S6 so pretty sure it's Qi
  • deleted 9y ago
• Kayou 9y ago
  My problem with wireless charging is that it gets my Nexus 4 crazy hot because of the induction. But that may be my cheapo charger, I dont know.
  • quanticle 9y ago
    That was my problem as well. The other problem that I had (which turned out to be a deal breaker) was that in order for the phone to charge, you had to place it just right on the charging pad. Otherwise it would show that it was charging (you'd see the lightning bolt on the battery icon), but the phone wouldn't actually charge. In practice, this meant that wireless charging was actually considerably less convenient than plugging a USB cable into the phone, since you had to check back on the phone after a few minutes to verify that the phone was actually charging.
    • Kayou 9y ago
      Some pad solve this problem by having multiple coils inside of them. I don't think it solves the heat problem though.
  • xur17 9y ago
    I had the same problem with my Nexus 4 and a nokia qi charger. The battery life got significantly worse in the months after I started using it. I have no way of knowing if that was the cause, but it seemed likely at the time.
    • frio 9y ago
      I never charged my Nexus 4 wirelessly, but the battery life collapsed somewhere into its second year. They were beautiful phones, but the batteries on them degraded abysmally.
    • Kayou 9y ago
      Heat is known to degrade battery life/capacity. That's why middle range product (like those with a SD625) are better for battery life not only because they sip power, but because they don't heat up as much and you'll get a bettery life after one or two years compared to a more powerful SoC.
• always_good 9y ago
  I thought the fingerprint scanner on the back would be a good feature until I realized 90% of my phone usage involves me pulling it out of my pocket. - On my iPhone, I just pinch it with my thumb on the home button while I pull it out. - On my Pixel, I have to take it out and then unlock it. Also, when the phone is resting on a table, I can just unlock my iPhone by touching the home button. With the Pixel, I have to turn it over first. When all I wanted to do was read a message I just received, possibly with dirty hands. So putting the unlock on the back of the phone doesn't seem very well thought out at all.
  • chrishynes 9y ago
    That all depends on _where_ on the back of the phone. With my Nexus 6P, the fingerprint sensor is located right where my index finger naturally goes while holding the phone. With a correctly located rear fingerprint sensor, it becomes an automatic motion without thinking rather than having to consciously find and press a button.
    • Terretta 9y ago
      Except for the 'no hands while locked on the table' part. It's an oh so common use case.
      • kllrnohj 9y ago
        It's OK Apple just obsoleted that use case by requiring your face to be in the camera's recognition zone. No more unlocking it while it's on a table!
  • tacomonstrous 9y ago
    >On my Pixel, I have to take it out and then unlock it. This isn't my experience at all. By the time it's out of my pocket, my index finger is right on the scanner and the phone is unlocked. Might be a function of the size of the pocket or of the hand, though.
  • JeremyNT 9y ago
• zjs 9y ago
  > the fingerprint sensor being in the middle of the back on 6P is unquestionably a better choice I've been very happy with the fingerprint reader positioning on the Sony Xperia Z5 Compact: as a part of the power button, along the edge of the device. It's exactly where my right thumb naturally rests when holding my phone. (And lines up nicely with my left middle finger rests, if I'm holding it in my left hand.) Side view: https://www.androidcentral.com/sites/androidcentral.com/files/styles/larger_wm_brw/public/article_images/2015/11/xperia-z5-fingerprint-scanner-position.jpg https://www.androidcentral.com/sites/androidcentral.com/file...
• hobarrera 9y ago
  > the fingerprint sensor being in the middle of the back on 6P is unquestionably a better choice This is arguably not too relevant any more -- the current Apple flagship phone replaced TouchID with FaceID, and that's probably the direction they're headed in for future phones too.
• Tepix 9y ago
  The Nexus 5 was released less than 4 years ago.