Last week, Apple introduced a power bank for the iPhone 12 called the MagSafe Battery Pack. Despite the fact that no one was waiting for its release, everyone was very surprised not even by the very fact of the release of the accessory, but by the capabilities of the iPhone that it reveals. It turned out that the iPhone 12 after all supports reverse charging, using it just to charge an external battery. This news provoked a flurry of discussions, most of the participants in which advocated that Apple not limit the scope reverse charging and allowed her to charge even third-party devices. But, as for me, this is pure stupidity.
Reverse charging in iPhone is not something to strive for
I don’t see any point in equipping iPhone reverse charging in the form in which it is implemented on devices running Android. With its help, you can charge from smartphone any external device that supports wireless charging. It can be at least a smart watch, even headphones, even a full-fledged smartphone. Simple enough activate the reverse charge functionput the device to be charged on the device that acts as a power source, and leave them for a while.
Reverse charge problems
MagSafe Battery Pack only activates reverse charging in iPhone when plugged into a power outlet, and rightly so
This is useless for several reasons:
- First, the device must support Qi wireless charging, and the Apple Watch uses a magnetic mount, so it won’t attach to the iPhone. And limited compatibility is not the Apple way.
- Secondly, although the iPhone is energy efficient enough to work for several days in a row, their batteries have a limited capacity, so their resource will simply not be enough to recharge third-party devices.
- Thirdly, reverse charging is very costly in terms of energy loss. Accurate measurements were not carried out, but practice shows that about 30 or even 35% of the energy that a smartphone gives off through reverse charging is wasted.
- Fourth, reverse charging is not suitable for fast charging of external devices. Despite the fact that some devices develop power up to 10 watts per output, this is still very small, not to mention the fact that many devices simply do not support wireless charging at such a power.
These were technical points. And now let’s stop purely in practice. I suggest taking AirPods Pro as an example. The standard time for charging them by wire with a case is about two hours. That is, from the iPhone they would be charged at least as much, or even longer. That is, all this time you would have to avoid using your smartphone. Can you imagine something like that? Personally, I don’t.
Even if I didn’t need my smartphone for an hour and a half, I just can’t imagine a scenario in which reverse charging can be justified. If I am at home or in the office, I always have an outlet at hand, or even more than one. It’s simply easier for me to plug the power cable into the case of my AirPods and two hours later I get fully charged headphones.
Do I need reverse charging in iPhone
Try to keep AirPods on your iPhone all the way from Tomilino to Kozhukhovskaya
If I’m driving in a car or on public transport, charging something by reverse charging is simply inconvenient. After all, this means that I need to hold one device on top of the other in order to maintain power transfer. In most cases, this is simply not possible. On the street it’s the same. So it turns out some kind of utter stupidity with low efficiency and almost zero degree of utility.
Is it a matter MagSafe Battery Pack. In my opinion, he is the best proof that Apple is better than others at useful innovations. Because what’s the point do reverse charging for all devicesthat no one will use? But in the case of an external battery that is energized while you are charging your smartphone, this is cool and convenient. After all, it does not need to connect a separate power cable.
Here Apple acted very wisely. She made it so that during the operation of reverse charging, when the battery is charging, the energy of the smartphone itself is not wasted. In the end, it would be very strange – to kill the autonomy of the iPhone for the sake of an external device. Therefore, it only works when the iPhone is connected to the power supply. So if Apple does reverse charging full-fledged in future generations of iPhonethen it would be logical to make it dependent on the supply of current.
Otherwise, I would never agree to pay extra for reverse charging. Moreover, even if Apple offered it as a default feature, I would not use it in principle. Not because I’m so stupid and can’t come up with a scenario for using this technology, but because it, like many others implemented by Apple’s competitors, is simply ill-conceived and not intended for practical use.
