Will iPhone have wireless charging?

Speculation swirls as Apple joins consortium

NEW YORK There’s an awfully powerful chance that the 10thanniversary iPhone is going to include wireless charging.

Adding to recent speculation about the next iPhone’s features, Apple late last week joined the Wireless Power Consortium, an industry group that has been pushing a wireless charging standard known as Qi.

While Samsung, among other rivals to Apple, has had wireless charging in its premium handsets for some time now, all iPhones lack this convenience feature.

“The success of wireless charging adoption from Apple’s competitors is something that Apple can no longer ignore,” says IHS Technology analyst Vicky Yussuff, who adds that 90% of the consumers that IHS has surveyed said they want wireless charging on their next device.

The Qi standard encompasses both inductive and resonant charging technologies.

Apple wouldn’t comment on any of the features that might make it into the next iPhone. But the company did issue a statement:

“Apple is an active member of many standards development organizations, as both a leader and contributor. Apple is joining the Wireless Power Consortium to be able to participate and contribute ideas to the open, collaborative development of future wireless charging standards. We look forward to working together with the WPC and its members.”

Samsung, Lenovo, LG, HTC, Huawei, Sony and Nokia are among the 200- plus member companies in the WPC.

With Apple joining them, the companies with the largest market share in mobile phones are now members of the organization.

Apple does offer wireless charging through the Apple Watch.

And with some third- party cases iPhone owners charge the phones wirelessly.

One wireless- charging company, Powermat, says it welcomes the news.

“It means that consumers ( who don’t care about standards) will be able to seamlessly charge their iPhones at places like Starbucks,” Powermat vice president for communications Scott Eisenstein says.

Powermat describes itself as standards- agnostic.

IHS expects more than 350 million wireless- charging- capable receiver units to ship in 2017 worldwide, with most of the volume driven through the backing of wireless charging by Samsung.