New Patent Filing Suggests Future iPhones, iPads Could be Wirelessly Charged

[RaduTyrsina]

Almost every week, we see a new Apple patent filing being made public, and usually they contain details about technologies or features that belong to the future. Such is the case with a newly patented technology from Apple, which proposes the use of magnetic resonance to create a power field for charging a variety of nearby devices.

In other words - it seems that Apple already possesses the know-how to make iPhones and iPads charge wirelessly. Here are some details from the patent, which was discovered by the ZDnet publication:

Various embodiments of a wirelessly powered local computing environment are described. The wireless powered local computing environment includes at least a near field magnetic resonance (NFMR) power supply arranged to wirelessly provide power to any of a number of suitably configured devices.

In the described embodiments, the devices arranged to receive power wirelessly from the NFMR power supply can be located in a region known as the near field that extends about a distance D that can be a few times a characteristic size of the NFMR power supply transmission device. Typically, the distance D can be on the order of 1 meter or so.

The near-field magnetic resonance technology is different from inductive charging as it’s capable of wirelessly charging devices up to one meter away. So, if the iPhone 6 or next-gen iPad get released sporting this feature, then it will have a big advantage over competition.

NFMR does not require a device to be touching the power supply like Powermat or other existing wireless charging stations. In its patent filing, Apple says the technology is completely safe, just in case you were wondering how harmful that area can be. However, this is still an invention and it's not sure whether it'll get deployed in the near future.

Source: Zdnet