Are you one of those who love sitting at your couch, next to the power socket, phone plugged in, as you busy yourself with chatting or playing some games? That luxury is about to be past history as mobile phone manufacturers gear up to ditching basically the only port left on smartphones – the charging ports.
Smartphones typically have had at least two ports, the micro USB (then USB Type C) and the earphone jack. Those two ports are basically still very predominant, but most recent phones have already started ditching the earphone jack, in exchange for bluetooth enabled earphones (yeah I know, some of you do not like that “the bluetooth device is ready to pair” woman).
When Apple ditched the earphone jack in 2018 there were skeptics, with many reasoning that the consumers will not want to buy devices that can’t plug earphones into. But well, iPad and iPhone sales have just remained the same since Apple made that move – a move that has made players like Samsung to copy Apple. When Samsung announced the Samsung Galaxy Note 10, one of the striking features was the absence of the headphone jack – and well, no one seemed to care.
Just as wireless earphones have been in development for years, so has been wireless charging. Wireless charging has come along way from back in 2012 where only select Samsung Galaxy S3 phones had the capability to charge wirelessly, to today where no flagship devices are being launched without wireless charging technology. Wireless chargers themselves have evolved to be more efficient, and are becoming “power-at-a-distance” chargers. At this stage therefore, it is not surprising for one to speculate that in 2021, Apple will ditch the lightning port altogether.
The lightning port is the name Apple has given its charging and data transfer port. It did this basically to make it impossible for iPhone users to use Android cables – something that probably helps them to feel special, but something that in most instances lead them to frustrations as they can never use any other cables other than the one that the phone came with.
That frustration is about to go away given that from 2021, iPhones and other Apple mobile devices are likely to allow only wireless charging – implying wireless data transfer too. These two options are already happening today, but consumers would rather use the cable systems because cables come with their own luxuries. When it comes to cable charging, the luxury is in the ability to use the phone as it charges. Data transfer through cables is actually inconveniencing, other than for the fact that more often than not, transferring data via Bluetooth or even WiFi is way slower than through USB.
The inconvenience of having to forgo the use of your smartphone as it charges maybe short lived, since already a working over-a-distance charger has been developed, and ready to be deployed. The charging System was approved by FCC last year and has since been demonstrated.
Right now what we can say then is, probably by 2021 the Wattup charging system will be ripe for App to deploy with its 2021 iPhone iterations.