Report claims AirPower could live on while reverse charging could have everything charge everything else

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AirPower wireless charger
AirPower wireless charger (Image credit: Apple)

What you need to know

  • Apple is once again said to be working on an AirPower-like multi-device charger.
  • Reports of Apple working to bring reverse wireless charging to iPhones and iPads continue.
  • AirPower was announced and then ditched before it was ever released.

Apple could still get an AirPower-like multi-device charger out and into the market at some point in the future, according to a new report. Although it isn't immediately clear whether that's based on a source inside Apple or a gut feeling.

AirPower was announced in 2017 but never actually shipped, with Apple eventually canning the product. It was announced alongside iPhone X, but here we are with iPhone 13 in our hands and Apple is still to revisit the project, creating a device that can charge multiple devices at the same time. Instead, it appears to be letting Belkin do the job for it. According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, writing in his Power On newsletter, he believes AirPower could live on in some shape or form/

I do think Apple is still working on some sort of multi-device charger that it intends to eventually release. There's a reason why it planned to launch the device in the first place in 2017.

That seems plausible, although the length of time that has passed does suggest Apple might be happier to leave Belkin and other third-party manufacturers to plug the hole left by AirPower.

The same report also claims that Apple is working on a reverse charging solution that would see "an iPad charging an iPhone and then that iPhone charging AirPods or an Apple Watch." iPhones have been rumored to have reverse charging built in for a number of years now — but so far, it hasn't happened.

Could next year's iPhone 14 finally let us charge our AirPods using our iPhones for the first time? That truly would make it the best iPhone ever!

Oliver Haslam
Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.