PROBLEM OF THE FORTNIGHT
Q I’ve been trying to help an elderly lady who has macular degeneration. Using some Apple accessibility features, she manages to use the 9th-generation iPad she bought a couple of months ago reasonably well, but she has great difficulty locating the power socket and inserting the power cable. A friend of hers suggested getting a wireless charger, but compatibility seems to be a problem. I found a Belkin Qi charger at Argos for £20, but the description and packaging was confusing. During a live chat with someone at Belkin I was told it wasn’t possible, but a text chat with Apple informed me an iPad can be charged wirelessly.
I asked him if Apple sold a wireless charger for iPads, but he didn’t know and suggested I look on its retail website. I did, and they don’t – although there are some expensive devices that’ll charge an iPhone, AirPods or Watch wirelessly, but have a Lightning cable to an iPad. Can you shed light on this please?
Alan Comerie
A This is both really simple and painfully complicated. The simple answer is that, right now, no iPad supports wireless charging – at least via the Qi standard or Apple’s own modified version of Qi, which it calls MagSafe. There’s no particular technical reason why iPads couldn’t be made compatible with these systems, but we imagine Apple considers practicality an issue. Why?
Well, the zone for delivery and receiving power via Qi and MagSafe chargers is relatively small. However, iPhones, AirPods and Watches aren’t large devices, so finding this ‘sweet spot’ is fairly easy. But trying to position a bigger iPad to find this small and effectively invisible power target would be quite difficult.
Given that MagSafe improves Qi by ‘snapping’ into place magnetically, we imagine Apple will eventually make iPads that are compatible with at least its own wireless-charging system.
In the meantime, your friend has a 9th-generation (2021) iPad that can be charged only via a Lightning cable – but there could still be a solution that could help them.
Many years ago Apple used the name MagSafe to market a magnetic power cable for the company’s MacBook laptop range. Apple still makes this but, just for added confusion, it’s now called MagSafe 3.
If you’re wondering why all this is relevant it’s because while the iPad doesn’t support MagSafe or MagSafe 3, plenty of third-party companies make MagSafe 3-style cables that in effect add the feature to any Apple device with a Lightning or USB-C connector – so your friend could have a charging cable that just snaps into plac
