Pre-announce? Stay quiet? Either way Apple loses on forums like this one.
What about the third alternative? Keep up. Then you don't face the decision of pre-announcing or staying quiet in the first place.
Keep up to what, exactly? A new product takes as long as it takes. Or to quote Id Software, “It’ll be ready when it’s ready”. So the question is one whether to pre-announce it, or wait until it’s finished. In either case the techie pundits will whine, as lkrupp explained.
Keep up with the competition of course. Every year when Dell brings out a new XPS 15, release a new Macbook Pro same week. When HP brings out their new Z-workstation, update the Mac Pro same week. When Intel releases this year's NUC, update the Mac Mini same week. Show 'em who's boss. And no, Apple fans would not be whining but cheering!
Not surprising. Even the Airport routers ran some sort of variant of Darwin. One could make a fuzzy case for that being a “stripped down iOS.”
If the thing needs to be smart enough to reorient three magnetic fields, it requires programming and software tools, where would one expect that to come from?
“Devices put anywhere on the plate communicate their location on the pad”
I shouldn’t think this would be necessary and how would the device measure it’s location relative to the pad? How would it communicate it’s location if it is turned off or has a completely dead battery? The pad should be able to search for a find the location of the devices using nothing more than the flux generators themselves by looking at changes in resistance or something.
Pre-announce? Stay quiet? Either way Apple loses on forums like this one.
What about the third alternative? Keep up. Then you don't face the decision of pre-announcing or staying quiet in the first place.
Keep up to what, exactly? A new product takes as long as it takes. Or to quote Id Software, “It’ll be ready when it’s ready”. So the question is one whether to pre-announce it, or wait until it’s finished. In either case the techie pundits will whine, as lkrupp explained.
Keep up with the competition of course. Every year when Dell brings out a new XPS 15, release a new Macbook Pro same week. When HP brings out their new Z-workstation, update the Mac Pro same week. When Intel releases this year's NUC, update the Mac Mini same week. Show 'em who's boss. And no, Apple fans would not be whining but cheering!
Yup, if we want 4-5 year old configurations, they can be had off of eBay at half the price or less. If we want 6-7 year old configs, we can have them off of eBay at higher price than what is sold as new. Go figure!
Let’s review: First, computational photography (iPhone 7, 2016). Next, computational audio (HomePod, January 2018). Upcoming in September 2018, “computational electrons” that go where they are pointed (AirPower). When one is working at the frontiers of knowledge and for financial reasons cannot afford to be wrong, product launch dates are not amenable to the self-induced “needs” of journalists, investors and impatient clients.
Not surprising. Even the Airport routers ran some sort of variant of Darwin. One could make a fuzzy case for that being a “stripped down iOS.”
If the thing needs to be smart enough to reorient three magnetic fields, it requires programming and software tools, where would one expect that to come from?
Spot on. Powermat has to use a decent OS too, fortunately so for Starbucks who will have a software update pushed to them to give their 1000's of PowerMat charging stations compatibility with the Qi standard. PMA is on deathwatch.
Apple is never the first, but when they finally released the product, it is always the best. This will be nothing like those crappy wireless chargers that Android people have tried to use in the past.
Your "headliner" sentence reminds me of Trump's tweets, it's quite amusing. Proclaim something then try and fail to and back it up below. How is this going to change the "wireless charging paradigm"? You have a mat. You put a device on the mat. Device charges. True wireless charging would change the paradigm, but hasn't been too successful thus far. I think Disney has done a lot of research into it.
Can you explain why "the wireless chargers that Android people have" are "crappy"? As another poster has said, Apple's and third party ones both use Qi, a wireless charging standard.
My issue is Apple is usually the best, but with the current theme of not releasing something for an extraordinary time the faster competition has time to catch up. Siri is a good example, it was excellent when it first came out - years before Alexa and Google's voice assistant. But in that time Siri has stagnated to become less than mediocre and Alexa and Google have stormed past. Those timeframes are getting shorter and shorter now - competition is beginning to catch up by the time Apple releases the product, and granted it's not usually as good, but it doesn't take long for these products to improve to be almost as good for half the price.
Not surprising. Even the Airport routers ran some sort of variant of Darwin. One could make a fuzzy case for that being a “stripped down iOS.”
If the thing needs to be smart enough to reorient three magnetic fields, it requires programming and software tools, where would one expect that to come from?
They actually ran NetBSD, not Darwin, and a very distant relation to iOS. They also were performing packet switching, packet inspection, printer sharing, Airplay client, and hosting a wireless access point. An order of magnitude more complex than a wireless charging mat. "Reading magnetic fields" at this level simply requires a diode and a couple of capacitors, and a microcontroller can adjust that field. I have created hardware and written software to do just that.
Why does a charging mat need to run a custom version of iOS? This thing is going to be very expensive.
Get an engineering degree, go work for Apple in new product development, then find out.
Seriously, what sort of armchair expert doubts this stuff while having absolutely no relevant skill base?
I have and engineering degree, thanks, and there is no need for it to run a custom version of iOS. Something like this really does not need a full-blown OS or microprocessor. A simple microcontroller would be perfectly sufficient. Nothing Apple is doing here is remotely complex or new, the only difficulty is working out which is the correct coil vs position on the pad. Near-field wireless charging has been done for years before Apple had any interest in it, it's a simple and well known concept. With Apple's unlimited resources on hand, a couple of decent engineers could easily create an "Airpower" mat in 6 months.
How can something that looks so simple be so damn complicated?
But, once again, Apple shines: They "should have" released this 9 months ago with iPhone 8 & X. But, they tested it and refused to ship something that wasn't yet right.
It's Apple continuing to focus not on product but on how that product impacts the consumer... They don't release something just to release "the next product". If it doesn't make things better, they don't release it.
Why did they announce it if wasn’t even close to being ready to ship? I can understand announcing something that is delayed maybe a month or two but this will be a whole year! It’s the white iPhone all over again.
Not really. All they said was 2018. If it’s Sept rather than June that’s a few months, big deal.
The white iphone was quite late compared to the black’s release date.
Considering this is such a simple device with very basic software, the delay is even less understandable. It's as if Apple's engineers as a whole can only work on one thing at a time. Maybe they all work on iPhone & iPad for 95% of the time, then the remaining 5% is spent on Mac OS and accessories...
Pre-announce? Stay quiet? Either way Apple loses on forums like this one.
What about the third alternative? Keep up. Then you don't face the decision of pre-announcing or staying quiet in the first place.
Keep up to what, exactly? A new product takes as long as it takes. Or to quote Id Software, “It’ll be ready when it’s ready”. So the question is one whether to pre-announce it, or wait until it’s finished. In either case the techie pundits will whine, as lkrupp explained.
You know exactly what Ascii meant: keep up with the competition. Something complex I'd agree within reason that it's ready when it's ready, but accessories like this are not complex at all. Someone at Apple is really having a laugh.
Your incessant excuses and Apple ass-licking is as much trolling as the Anti-Apple crowd. Have you ever, once, criticised Apple?
The apologists are out in force today. It used to be a matter of pride that Apple deliver products when announced. The bottom line is they’re now making promises they can’t keep, which is a deviation from their historic M.O., and a mistake in my opinion. I’m having a really hard time imagining why Apple would announce a product 3-6 months ahead of release, much less one that had such significant challenges it ended up being realistically a year later. I understand that unexpected challenges arise in manufacture, but not having developed the device far enough along to foresee the potential engineering hurtles by the announce date to project a reasonable street date, seems like poor management to me at best. Apples excuse here is really “it was harder than we thought”, which is really a rather poor excuse coming from one of the largest tech companies in the world. At a minimum it’s just bad optics.
Completely agree with you. Announcing things so far in advance means you lose the initial hype too, so you lose a lot of impulse buys. The product has long since been forgotten and has much more competition when it's finally released. Plus as you say, they must have some idea of the release timescale when they announce - including mass-manufacturing delays, it's not like they're a startup with no experience. Similarly with the new Mac Pro, I have no idea what they're doing to need 6 years to come up with a different design. It's mad.
A year from WWDC17 deliver Stereo for HomePod from when it was announced. Now a year to deliver AirPower after they were announced. I hope they prioritize new Computers over AirPower because other than the MacPro (which won't show up till 2019) they haven't announced any new Computers. Cook says the Mini is an important part of Apple, why doesn't someone ask if there will be another Mac Mini.
Because the only 2 people that really care about a new Mac mini are you and Wizard?
If nobody cares about the Mac mini then why doesn’t Apple discontinue it?
Apple makes profits with Mac Mini. People still buy Mac Mini. The overall margin on Mac Mini is likely higher than on other products . There is no reason to discontinue something if it increases total profits.
Apple is never the first, but when they finally released the product, it is always the best. This will be nothing like those crappy wireless chargers that Android people have tried to use in the past.
Your "headliner" sentence reminds me of Trump's tweets, it's quite amusing. Proclaim something then try and fail to and back it up below. How is this going to change the "wireless charging paradigm"? You have a mat. You put a device on the mat. Device charges. True wireless charging would change the paradigm, but hasn't been too successful thus far. I think Disney has done a lot of research into it.
Can you explain why "the wireless chargers that Android people have" are "crappy"? As another poster has said, Apple's and third party ones both use Qi, a wireless charging standard.
My issue is Apple is usually the best, but with the current theme of not releasing something for an extraordinary time the faster competition has time to catch up. Siri is a good example, it was excellent when it first came out - years before Alexa and Google's voice assistant. But in that time Siri has stagnated to become less than mediocre and Alexa and Google have stormed past. Those timeframes are getting shorter and shorter now - competition is beginning to catch up by the time Apple releases the product, and granted it's not usually as good, but it doesn't take long for these products to improve to be almost as good for half the price.
Not surprising. Even the Airport routers ran some sort of variant of Darwin. One could make a fuzzy case for that being a “stripped down iOS.”
If the thing needs to be smart enough to reorient three magnetic fields, it requires programming and software tools, where would one expect that to come from?
They actually ran NetBSD, not Darwin, and a very distant relation to iOS. They also were performing packet switching, packet inspection, printer sharing, Airplay client, and hosting a wireless access point. An order of magnitude more complex than a wireless charging mat. "Reading magnetic fields" at this level simply requires a diode and a couple of capacitors, and a microcontroller can adjust that field. I have created hardware and written software to do just that.
Apple said that it would change the wireless charging paradigm, not me.
I think that you should direct your comments to Apple.
Why does a charging mat need to run a custom version of iOS? This thing is going to be very expensive.
Get an engineering degree, go work for Apple in new product development, then find out.
Seriously, what sort of armchair expert doubts this stuff while having absolutely no relevant skill base?
I have and engineering degree, thanks, and there is no need for it to run a custom version of iOS. Something like this really does not need a full-blown OS or microprocessor. A simple microcontroller would be perfectly sufficient. Nothing Apple is doing here is remotely complex or new, the only difficulty is working out which is the correct coil vs position on the pad. Near-field wireless charging has been done for years before Apple had any interest in it, it's a simple and well known concept. With Apple's unlimited resources on hand, a couple of decent engineers could easily create an "Airpower" mat in 6 months.
How can something that looks so simple be so damn complicated?
But, once again, Apple shines: They "should have" released this 9 months ago with iPhone 8 & X. But, they tested it and refused to ship something that wasn't yet right.
It's Apple continuing to focus not on product but on how that product impacts the consumer... They don't release something just to release "the next product". If it doesn't make things better, they don't release it.
Why did they announce it if wasn’t even close to being ready to ship? I can understand announcing something that is delayed maybe a month or two but this will be a whole year! It’s the white iPhone all over again.
Not really. All they said was 2018. If it’s Sept rather than June that’s a few months, big deal.
The white iphone was quite late compared to the black’s release date.
Considering this is such a simple device with very basic software, the delay is even less understandable. It's as if Apple's engineers as a whole can only work on one thing at a time. Maybe they all work on iPhone & iPad for 95% of the time, then the remaining 5% is spent on Mac OS and accessories...
Pre-announce? Stay quiet? Either way Apple loses on forums like this one.
What about the third alternative? Keep up. Then you don't face the decision of pre-announcing or staying quiet in the first place.
Keep up to what, exactly? A new product takes as long as it takes. Or to quote Id Software, “It’ll be ready when it’s ready”. So the question is one whether to pre-announce it, or wait until it’s finished. In either case the techie pundits will whine, as lkrupp explained.
You know exactly what Ascii meant: keep up with the competition. Something complex I'd agree within reason that it's ready when it's ready, but accessories like this are not complex at all. Someone at Apple is really having a laugh.
Your incessant excuses and Apple ass-licking is as much trolling as the Anti-Apple crowd. Have you ever, once, criticised Apple?
The apologists are out in force today. It used to be a matter of pride that Apple deliver products when announced. The bottom line is they’re now making promises they can’t keep, which is a deviation from their historic M.O., and a mistake in my opinion. I’m having a really hard time imagining why Apple would announce a product 3-6 months ahead of release, much less one that had such significant challenges it ended up being realistically a year later. I understand that unexpected challenges arise in manufacture, but not having developed the device far enough along to foresee the potential engineering hurtles by the announce date to project a reasonable street date, seems like poor management to me at best. Apples excuse here is really “it was harder than we thought”, which is really a rather poor excuse coming from one of the largest tech companies in the world. At a minimum it’s just bad optics.
So are the armchair engineers! It goes both ways I guess.
Pre-announce? Stay quiet? Either way Apple loses on forums like this one.
What about the third alternative? Keep up. Then you don't face the decision of pre-announcing or staying quiet in the first place.
Keep up to what, exactly? A new product takes as long as it takes. Or to quote Id Software, “It’ll be ready when it’s ready”. So the question is one whether to pre-announce it, or wait until it’s finished. In either case the techie pundits will whine, as lkrupp explained.
Keep up with the competition of course. Every year when Dell brings out a new XPS 15, release a new Macbook Pro same week. When HP brings out their new Z-workstation, update the Mac Pro same week. When Intel releases this year's NUC, update the Mac Mini same week. Show 'em who's boss. And no, Apple fans would not be whining but cheering!
Easy when you use off the shelf parts like Dell and HP. Apple actually does engineering and not just use off the shelf parts slapped in a shitty looking plastic case.
What about charging 2 or 3 iPhones at the same time? That has never been mentioned by Apple, only that an iPhone, Apple Watch, and the AirPods case can charge at the same time. Would be nice for my wife and I to set both of our iPhones on the AirPower Mat and charge at the same time.
What about charging 2 or 3 iPhones at the same time? That has never been mentioned by Apple, only that an iPhone, Apple Watch, and the AirPods case can charge at the same time. Would be nice for my wife and I to set both of our iPhones on the AirPower Mat and charge at the same time.
The AirPower may well offer additional features that you'll find useful, but there are already Qi chargers that can be used with more than one phone at a time and sell for well under $50. Even IKEA has one for $60 that will allow three phones to charge at once.
Of course I'd be pretty shocked if the AirPower won't handle two iPhones at once so IMO it's a given it does.
How can something that looks so simple be so damn complicated?
But, once again, Apple shines: They "should have" released this 9 months ago with iPhone 8 & X. But, they tested it and refused to ship something that wasn't yet right.
It's Apple continuing to focus not on product but on how that product impacts the consumer... They don't release something just to release "the next product". If it doesn't make things better, they don't release it.
Why did they announce it if wasn’t even close to being ready to ship? I can understand announcing something that is delayed maybe a month or two but this will be a whole year! It’s the white iPhone all over again.
Not really. All they said was 2018. If it’s Sept rather than June that’s a few months, big deal.
The white iphone was quite late compared to the black’s release date.
At the time AirPower was originally announced their PR marketing materials actually stated "early 2018". Not terribly important of course as missed goals are not that unusual no matter the industry. When it's ready Apple will ship it.
I haven't seen that material. During the event Phil Schiller only said "Look for the AirPower charger next year".
Why does a charging mat need to run a custom version of iOS? This thing is going to be very expensive.
Get an engineering degree, go work for Apple in new product development, then find out.
Seriously, what sort of armchair expert doubts this stuff while having absolutely no relevant skill base?
I have and engineering degree, thanks, and there is no need for it to run a custom version of iOS. Something like this really does not need a full-blown OS or microprocessor. A simple microcontroller would be perfectly sufficient. Nothing Apple is doing here is remotely complex or new, the only difficulty is working out which is the correct coil vs position on the pad. Near-field wireless charging has been done for years before Apple had any interest in it, it's a simple and well known concept. With Apple's unlimited resources on hand, a couple of decent engineers could easily create an "Airpower" mat in 6 months.
How can something that looks so simple be so damn complicated?
But, once again, Apple shines: They "should have" released this 9 months ago with iPhone 8 & X. But, they tested it and refused to ship something that wasn't yet right.
It's Apple continuing to focus not on product but on how that product impacts the consumer... They don't release something just to release "the next product". If it doesn't make things better, they don't release it.
Why did they announce it if wasn’t even close to being ready to ship? I can understand announcing something that is delayed maybe a month or two but this will be a whole year! It’s the white iPhone all over again.
Not really. All they said was 2018. If it’s Sept rather than June that’s a few months, big deal.
The white iphone was quite late compared to the black’s release date.
Considering this is such a simple device with very basic software, the delay is even less understandable. It's as if Apple's engineers as a whole can only work on one thing at a time. Maybe they all work on iPhone & iPad for 95% of the time, then the remaining 5% is spent on Mac OS and accessories...
Pre-announce? Stay quiet? Either way Apple loses on forums like this one.
What about the third alternative? Keep up. Then you don't face the decision of pre-announcing or staying quiet in the first place.
Keep up to what, exactly? A new product takes as long as it takes. Or to quote Id Software, “It’ll be ready when it’s ready”. So the question is one whether to pre-announce it, or wait until it’s finished. In either case the techie pundits will whine, as lkrupp explained.
You know exactly what Ascii meant: keep up with the competition. Something complex I'd agree within reason that it's ready when it's ready, but accessories like this are not complex at all. Someone at Apple is really having a laugh.
Your incessant excuses and Apple ass-licking is as much trolling as the Anti-Apple crowd. Have you ever, once, criticised Apple?
The apologists are out in force today. It used to be a matter of pride that Apple deliver products when announced. The bottom line is they’re now making promises they can’t keep, which is a deviation from their historic M.O., and a mistake in my opinion. I’m having a really hard time imagining why Apple would announce a product 3-6 months ahead of release, much less one that had such significant challenges it ended up being realistically a year later. I understand that unexpected challenges arise in manufacture, but not having developed the device far enough along to foresee the potential engineering hurtles by the announce date to project a reasonable street date, seems like poor management to me at best. Apples excuse here is really “it was harder than we thought”, which is really a rather poor excuse coming from one of the largest tech companies in the world. At a minimum it’s just bad optics.
I prefer pre-announcing to announcing only when ready to ship. I also want the longest pre-announcement period Apple is willing to give.
Apple pre-announced AirPower for 2018. Why would you prefer a short pre-announcement period, like if they only announced it right now for September? How would that help you, knowing nothing for the last 9 months? Just so you don’t have to wait as long between knowing something will be available, and being able to buy it?
Apple pre-announces when it suits their strategy, and ships when ready. The only ones who seem to have a problem with this are the ones who like to whine in forums. Time to grow up.
Why does a charging mat need to run a custom version of iOS? This thing is going to be very expensive.
Get an engineering degree, go work for Apple in new product development, then find out.
Seriously, what sort of armchair expert doubts this stuff while having absolutely no relevant skill base?
I have and engineering degree, thanks, and there is no need for it to run a custom version of iOS. Something like this really does not need a full-blown OS or microprocessor. A simple microcontroller would be perfectly sufficient. Nothing Apple is doing here is remotely complex or new, the only difficulty is working out which is the correct coil vs position on the pad. Near-field wireless charging has been done for years before Apple had any interest in it, it's a simple and well known concept. With Apple's unlimited resources on hand, a couple of decent engineers could easily create an "Airpower" mat in 6 months.
How can something that looks so simple be so damn complicated?
But, once again, Apple shines: They "should have" released this 9 months ago with iPhone 8 & X. But, they tested it and refused to ship something that wasn't yet right.
It's Apple continuing to focus not on product but on how that product impacts the consumer... They don't release something just to release "the next product". If it doesn't make things better, they don't release it.
Why did they announce it if wasn’t even close to being ready to ship? I can understand announcing something that is delayed maybe a month or two but this will be a whole year! It’s the white iPhone all over again.
Not really. All they said was 2018. If it’s Sept rather than June that’s a few months, big deal.
The white iphone was quite late compared to the black’s release date.
Considering this is such a simple device with very basic software, the delay is even less understandable. It's as if Apple's engineers as a whole can only work on one thing at a time. Maybe they all work on iPhone & iPad for 95% of the time, then the remaining 5% is spent on Mac OS and accessories...
Pre-announce? Stay quiet? Either way Apple loses on forums like this one.
What about the third alternative? Keep up. Then you don't face the decision of pre-announcing or staying quiet in the first place.
Keep up to what, exactly? A new product takes as long as it takes. Or to quote Id Software, “It’ll be ready when it’s ready”. So the question is one whether to pre-announce it, or wait until it’s finished. In either case the techie pundits will whine, as lkrupp explained.
You know exactly what Ascii meant: keep up with the competition. Something complex I'd agree within reason that it's ready when it's ready, but accessories like this are not complex at all. Someone at Apple is really having a laugh.
Your incessant excuses and Apple ass-licking is as much trolling as the Anti-Apple crowd. Have you ever, once, criticised Apple?
The apologists are out in force today. It used to be a matter of pride that Apple deliver products when announced. The bottom line is they’re now making promises they can’t keep, which is a deviation from their historic M.O., and a mistake in my opinion. I’m having a really hard time imagining why Apple would announce a product 3-6 months ahead of release, much less one that had such significant challenges it ended up being realistically a year later. I understand that unexpected challenges arise in manufacture, but not having developed the device far enough along to foresee the potential engineering hurtles by the announce date to project a reasonable street date, seems like poor management to me at best. Apples excuse here is really “it was harder than we thought”, which is really a rather poor excuse coming from one of the largest tech companies in the world. At a minimum it’s just bad optics.
Ask for a refund if you're so victimized by their tardiness.
As for apologists, not really. We occasionally see some dipshit trolls here, such as those who claim building a brand new product "is easy" and "should only take six months!" (lol, the QA period will be six months) etc.... All from the comfort of their keyboards while they themselves aren't launching jack shit nor likely have they ever. I'm a software engineer and I've launched products before, both software and physical goods in national retail stores across the country. New products always, always have a learning curve and lessons learned. Most consumers are rather ignorant and have little understanding of what is involved. They stomp their little feet and whine about wanting it nooooooow. I have no problem trying to explain why their world view is unrealistic. That's not apologizing, that's just speaking from experience.
Head on over to MR if you want a blind hate train.
How can something that looks so simple be so damn complicated?
But, once again, Apple shines: They "should have" released this 9 months ago with iPhone 8 & X. But, they tested it and refused to ship something that wasn't yet right.
It's Apple continuing to focus not on product but on how that product impacts the consumer... They don't release something just to release "the next product". If it doesn't make things better, they don't release it.
Why did they announce it if wasn’t even close to being ready to ship? I can understand announcing something that is delayed maybe a month or two but this will be a whole year! It’s the white iPhone all over again.
Not really. All they said was 2018. If it’s Sept rather than June that’s a few months, big deal.
The white iphone was quite late compared to the black’s release date.
Doesn’t matter. They announced in September of 2017. If this rumor is correct it will go on sale a year later. Again why announce a product clearly not ready for prime time. It’s highly unlikely s small or unforeseen problem could have caused a delay this long.
Comments
If the thing needs to be smart enough to reorient three magnetic fields, it requires programming and software tools, where would one expect that to come from?
I shouldn’t think this would be necessary and how would the device measure it’s location relative to the pad? How would it communicate it’s location if it is turned off or has a completely dead battery? The pad should be able to search for a find the location of the devices using nothing more than the flux generators themselves by looking at changes in resistance or something.
If we want 6-7 year old configs, we can have them off of eBay at higher price than what is sold as new. Go figure!
Can you explain why "the wireless chargers that Android people have" are "crappy"? As another poster has said, Apple's and third party ones both use Qi, a wireless charging standard. My issue is Apple is usually the best, but with the current theme of not releasing something for an extraordinary time the faster competition has time to catch up. Siri is a good example, it was excellent when it first came out - years before Alexa and Google's voice assistant. But in that time Siri has stagnated to become less than mediocre and Alexa and Google have stormed past. Those timeframes are getting shorter and shorter now - competition is beginning to catch up by the time Apple releases the product, and granted it's not usually as good, but it doesn't take long for these products to improve to be almost as good for half the price.
They actually ran NetBSD, not Darwin, and a very distant relation to iOS. They also were performing packet switching, packet inspection, printer sharing, Airplay client, and hosting a wireless access point. An order of magnitude more complex than a wireless charging mat. "Reading magnetic fields" at this level simply requires a diode and a couple of capacitors, and a microcontroller can adjust that field. I have created hardware and written software to do just that.
Easy when you use off the shelf parts like Dell and HP. Apple actually does engineering and not just use off the shelf parts slapped in a shitty looking plastic case.
Of course I'd be pretty shocked if the AirPower won't handle two iPhones at once so IMO it's a given it does.
Apple pre-announced AirPower for 2018. Why would you prefer a short pre-announcement period, like if they only announced it right now for September? How would that help you, knowing nothing for the last 9 months? Just so you don’t have to wait as long between knowing something will be available, and being able to buy it?
Apple pre-announces when it suits their strategy, and ships when ready. The only ones who seem to have a problem with this are the ones who like to whine in forums. Time to grow up.
Ask for a refund if you're so victimized by their tardiness.
As for apologists, not really. We occasionally see some dipshit trolls here, such as those who claim building a brand new product "is easy" and "should only take six months!" (lol, the QA period will be six months) etc.... All from the comfort of their keyboards while they themselves aren't launching jack shit nor likely have they ever. I'm a software engineer and I've launched products before, both software and physical goods in national retail stores across the country. New products always, always have a learning curve and lessons learned. Most consumers are rather ignorant and have little understanding of what is involved. They stomp their little feet and whine about wanting it nooooooow. I have no problem trying to explain why their world view is unrealistic. That's not apologizing, that's just speaking from experience.
Head on over to MR if you want a blind hate train.