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> Qi2 is based on Magsafe. That's an insult to all of the engineering that went into Qi. The Magsafe specification was an attempt to create the new Lightning

> Qi2 is based on Magsafe. That's an insult to all of the engineering that went into Qi. The Magsafe specification was an attempt to create the new Lightning connector ecosystem that backfired spectacularly and blew up in Apple's face. It's nothing more than magnets and DRM layered on top of a regular Qi charger. Naturally Apple used the DRM to limit the charging speeds of their phones when paired with regular Qi chargers. There's a practical reason for this which is how Apple tried to justify their outrageous licensing fee to implement Magsafe. Unfortunately for Apple, manufacturers mostly said no to Magsafe licensing and Apple's user based complained to Apple that their phones wouldn't charge at the rated speeds of the Qi chargers they bought. This put Apple in an awkward position where they could tell their users to only buy MagSafe devices, compromise on safety to appease users, or give up on Magsafe being proprietary. Thankfully they chose the later. Qi2 isn't Magsafe, Qi2 incorporated Magsafe because it improves the standard. Don't let Apple marketing fool you into thinking Apple is doing this altruistically.

GeekyBear 2y ago
From the article linked above: > With the blessing of competitors, Apple is about to change the Qi wireless standard itself. It’s contributing to a new version of Qi that works much like MagSafe — magnets, authentication, and all.
- cptskippy 2y ago
  "Qi2 is based on Magsafe" is not the same as "Apple is... contributing to a new version of Qi" Your statement implies that Qi2 used Magsafe as a starting point or that it's primarily based on Magsafe. Your statement is inaccurate and would lead people to think that Qi2 was mostly an Apple design.
  - DrBenCarson 2y ago
    …it is. Qi2 is basically a copy-paste of MagSafe
    - jacobgkau 2y ago
      I think their point was that the wireless MagSafe was basically a copy-paste of Qi, so it wasn't "mostly an Apple design" to begin with. "Qi2 is a copy-paste of MagSafe" (or "Qi2 is based on MagSafe") makes it sound a bit like they threw out the original Qi in favor of Apple's completely home-grown alternative, which comes with inaccurate connotations of who actually did the important work. It's subjective how important the history is and how important Apple's contributions are, but that seems to be what they were getting at.
    - cptskippy 2y ago
      MagSafe was a branch of Qi that's been merged back to main.
  - Kirby64 2y ago
    > Your statement implies that Qi2 used Magsafe as a starting point or that it's primarily based on Magsafe. Your statement is inaccurate and would lead people to think that Qi2 was mostly an Apple design. You'd be wrong, though. Apple is on the WPC membership and has heavy influence over their spec definitions. They do this with many standards. They sit on the standards body as contributing members, and influence the specifications in ways they see as beneficial. They did this with USB (especially USB-C), they do this with MIPI standards, and they do this with WPC. When standards organizations move too slow (which, is pretty much always), companies like Apple will move to make proprietary versions of a thing usually based on drafts of standards that are taking too long.
pertymcpert 2y ago
So what I'm seeing is that Qi2 is based on MagSafe then.
- cptskippy 2y ago
  MagSafe is just a branch of Qi that was merged back into main.
  - pertymcpert 2y ago
    So Qi2's ancestor is MagSafe. Got it.
    - cptskippy 2y ago
      And MagSafe's ancestor is Qi.
      - pertymcpert 2y ago
        Doesn't matter, since what we're talking about is Qi2 vs MagSafe hahaha
        jacobgkau 2y ago
        It does matter. Qi2 is based on Qi, period. Qi 1 was not thrown out and "replaced" with MagSafe-- MagSafe was just a brand name of a Qi superset. Next time you merge any pull request into your project (especially a tiny one adjusting some UI spacing), should I come on Hacker News and repeatedly insist you had nothing to do with the project's development and the person who wrote that PR really deserves all the credit? That's the metaphor cptskippy was using. You're making it out to be a "ship of Theseus" situation when it's not.

GeekyBear 2y ago

From the article linked above: > With the blessing of competitors, Apple is about to change the Qi wireless standard itself. It’s contributing to a new version of Qi that works much like MagSafe — magnets, authentication, and all.

cptskippy 2y ago
"Qi2 is based on Magsafe" is not the same as "Apple is... contributing to a new version of Qi" Your statement implies that Qi2 used Magsafe as a starting point or that it's primarily based on Magsafe. Your statement is inaccurate and would lead people to think that Qi2 was mostly an Apple design.
- DrBenCarson 2y ago
  …it is. Qi2 is basically a copy-paste of MagSafe
  - jacobgkau 2y ago
    I think their point was that the wireless MagSafe was basically a copy-paste of Qi, so it wasn't "mostly an Apple design" to begin with. "Qi2 is a copy-paste of MagSafe" (or "Qi2 is based on MagSafe") makes it sound a bit like they threw out the original Qi in favor of Apple's completely home-grown alternative, which comes with inaccurate connotations of who actually did the important work. It's subjective how important the history is and how important Apple's contributions are, but that seems to be what they were getting at.
  - cptskippy 2y ago
    MagSafe was a branch of Qi that's been merged back to main.
- Kirby64 2y ago
  > Your statement implies that Qi2 used Magsafe as a starting point or that it's primarily based on Magsafe. Your statement is inaccurate and would lead people to think that Qi2 was mostly an Apple design. You'd be wrong, though. Apple is on the WPC membership and has heavy influence over their spec definitions. They do this with many standards. They sit on the standards body as contributing members, and influence the specifications in ways they see as beneficial. They did this with USB (especially USB-C), they do this with MIPI standards, and they do this with WPC. When standards organizations move too slow (which, is pretty much always), companies like Apple will move to make proprietary versions of a thing usually based on drafts of standards that are taking too long.

pertymcpert 2y ago

So what I'm seeing is that Qi2 is based on MagSafe then.

cptskippy 2y ago
MagSafe is just a branch of Qi that was merged back into main.
- pertymcpert 2y ago
  So Qi2's ancestor is MagSafe. Got it.
  - cptskippy 2y ago
    And MagSafe's ancestor is Qi.
    - pertymcpert 2y ago
      Doesn't matter, since what we're talking about is Qi2 vs MagSafe hahaha
      - jacobgkau 2y ago
        It does matter. Qi2 is based on Qi, period. Qi 1 was not thrown out and "replaced" with MagSafe-- MagSafe was just a brand name of a Qi superset. Next time you merge any pull request into your project (especially a tiny one adjusting some UI spacing), should I come on Hacker News and repeatedly insist you had nothing to do with the project's development and the person who wrote that PR really deserves all the credit? That's the metaphor cptskippy was using. You're making it out to be a "ship of Theseus" situation when it's not.