Wireless technology is turning out to be the USP of next-generation devices on the drawing boards and one of the newest is wireless charging. Charging without wires is now indeed and achievable task and the iPhone are poised to be the device which introduces the technology to the mass market in its next-next generation iPhone 6. Predicted to be released in 2012, the iPhone 6 will be carrying the wireless charging feature according to the Wall Street Journal. The fact that Apple has already moved to file a patent on “wireless power utilization in a local environment” further bolsters this claim. Wireless charging if introduced in the iPhone 6 will truly fulfill the concept of a mobile communication device - without any wires attached.
The iPhone, a device pioneered by the late Steve Jobs of Apple that has indubitably set high standards as far as smartphones are concerned, has a knack for introducing revolutionary concepts to the market. And if not new, the concepts are definitely more polished and usable than previously attempted. I mention this because Apple is not the guys who came up with the original idea for wireless charging. The patent states Apple’s collaboration with the startup company WiTricity who originally demonstrated wireless charging for the first time back in 2009. At the 2009 Technology, Entertainment and Design Conference, WiTricity demonstrated their prototype technology which utilized metallic coils embedded in an iPhone and a device which seemed like a large radio antennae. A magnetic field set up by the later was used to charge the iPhone provided that the devices were only a few meters apart.
WiTricity was not the first company to experiment with wireless charging however and there were several who tried to develop a working model with the feature and even succeeded to a point. The Palm Pre when coupled with a special stand called the Touchstone utilized the theory of inductive charging by allowing the Pre to be charged whenever the device was placed on the stand. But the basic problems with this were the limitation that the device needed to be in contact with stand and that the efficiency of this technology was low. However the standards Witricity hopes to achieve is beyond what has been attempted before and will eliminate the requirement of being in contact with anything else for the device to be charged.
Although the patents have already been filed by Apple, at this point it is purely speculative at best whether Apple actually plans to introduce wireless charging to the mass market in its iPhone 6. History has shown that Apple is in the habit of stacking up patents for things such as solar powered or 3D iPhone and gesture based control without any report to verify whether it has yet developed the technology to mass market the features. Apple has a knack for refining and polishing up technology before incorporating them in its products and wireless charging might very well be a trump card Apple will be holding onto for a future device which will shake up the market like its predecessors.
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About the author : Kate is a blogger by profession. She loves writing on topics related to electronics and technology. Beside this she is fond of mobile games. These days she is busy in writing an article on mobile applications .
