Apple AirPower Prototype - First Ever Review!

The Apple AirPower was announced in 2017 & cancelled in 2019- and today, we're looking at an actual 22-coil prototype unit more in-depth than anyone ever has before, from the hardware to even developer commands!

0:00 - This is AirPower.
1:15 - Future of Charging
2:40 - Context of AirPower
5:05 - 2017 22-Coil Prototype
7:09 - Prototype Functionality
9:00 - Developer Commands & Output
12:04 - Documentation & Hi, Tim!
13:07 - Final Prototype Design?
15:08 - Apple's Greatest Failure
17:50 - Patent Development History
19:49 - Delays, Rumors, Canceled
21:27 - AirPower Never Dies
24:40 - This was AirPower.

Music-

#AirPower #Apple

[Tech]

Edit: for the record, I DID try various power bricks, a bunch of different wattages and adapters. It just isn't plug & play. Best chance of it working- which it definitely could- would be through the dev commands, if someone can figure out all the numbers needed to fire up a coil.

[LaskyLabs]

This is one of the few times in my life I've ever felt bad for them. I don't even know why, it's just a really neat piece of tech that I wish had become a thing. They flew too close to the sun...

[RavenBomb]

0xDEADBEEF is a pretty common debugging hexcode, as you probably won't see it in normal use, is easily recognisable, and fits perfectly in 32 bits, which the processors inside are likely 32 bit processors. My guess is that the fault command uses deadbeef to trigger an out-of bounds address exception or something like that

[Photo]

I can't be the only one hoping they use those really sick 3D spinning animations for wireless charging someday. It screams premium to me.

[iLife]

This makes me so happy, I never thought anybody would ever get their hands on this vaporware. The underground apple prototype market never fails to impress

[jayg]

I was always disappointed AirPower never came out, but I am satisfied with the implementation of MagSafe and how it solves the issues AirPower was trying to solve.

[eggbag]

That little animation it would have done should be the current MagSafe animation. It’s great. It would be even cooler if it changes the color of the device based on the real world color, like how the Nintendo Switch recognizes the color of joycons

[Stupranos]

Apple prototypes are most interesting cause they show both what could've been and how something got where it is today.

[JeffGeerling]

Even if the prototypes have a little extra circuitry... seeing the complexity of the board and overall design makes it seem like Apple was trying to go a little further than physics would reasonably allow. At least at any non-astronomical price.

That said, I still wish they had succeeded with this board. Or found a way to get the tech embedded into other devices/furniture (Qi is a little finicky with alignment/positioning). I'd love to drop my phone on my desk in some random area and have it just start charging.

[KarlRock]

Fantastic video! Wish we could see it working. But very in depth analysis! Thank you.

[swankperfection]

Hahahaha 😂 The “good morning” voiceover from Cook was priceless. I can almost picture it happening. Lol

[xBytz]

I'm so glad you wanted to take the transparent route and share your findings and full terminal outputs! Really enjoy seeing prototype and debug stuff like this

[Duarte-cmfu]

I wonder if it would of worked with apples recent and thicker squared off design language. I feel like the ridiculously thin design didn't help it's fate.

[Jezee]

Awesome job on this video, I always found the whole Airpower situation so fascinating! You clearly did your research.

[ZachDarvin]

Amazed at how you were able to get one. Hope that Apple won’t come knocking at your door. It’s cancelled tech anyway.

[TheBrokenEclipse]

Man this was cool, thanks for taking the time to put this together!

I would have loved to have the AirPower so bad, it was exactly what I needed and still do!

[crschtt]

"Free air" probably translates to "nothing on the pad", "Ferrite" would be "house keys and other metal items", "Aluminum" might be like "iPods and other stuffs". And those might be calibrated using specific test materials on top. This kind of detection is done so to prevent a kid putting on the dad's iPod Classic and start a fire.

[garydellabate]

What a great video! Thanks for all your time and effort spent creating it!

[gehadsheha]

13:08 Wow! I was not expecting to hear HOME on this channel! Amazing video by the way, I was really curious about AirPower and what to happened to it, and I’m really I finally saw a prototype of AirPower.
I also love the channel’s synthwave theme, I’m also big fan of HOME and synthwave.

[DiThi]

The calibrate commands are probably meant to be used with calibration objects that you put over it, probably just a sheet of aluminum and a sheet of ferrite, to detect the shape of the devices or something and choose the coil according to that.