Rumor | The Apple AirPower charging mat will come with an A11 Bionic chipset

The Apple AirPower is now rumored to be back on. This wireless charging mat of legend was reported to have been shelved at the Cupertino giant due to the inability to bring its dream of multiple Qi-compatible coils for effectively indiscriminate device placement to fruition.

However, thanks to a new engineering and design strategy allegedly leaked by Jon Prosser, these issues have been ironed out, thus finally clearing the new product for testing, at least.

This new idea apparently consists of using an A11 Bionic chipset to control the mat. This SoC, last seen in whole iPhone X, 8 and 8 Plus flagship-grade devices, may strike some as wasted on a simple accessory. Then again, based on the recent leaks surrounding its maker's upcoming release cycle, the rationale for its incorporation into a putative AirPower has 2 main arms.

Firstly, it will confer the smarts necessary to adapt to the increasingly wide range of actual and rumored Apple products it is ostensibly intended to charge. These devices include, and may not be limited to: Apple Watches; AirPod cases; Apple Tags; next-gen audio solutions that may replace the Beats series, and of course several generations of iPhones. The same single mat is also touted to charge as many of these as can fit on it at any given moment, moreover.

Secondly (and possibly more importantly) the AirPower - especially in its latest form reportedly in the hands of Apple staff members working from their homes as this article is being written - is still expected to come with a multi-coil system. This may indeed require A11-level processing for power management, as well as advanced heat dissipation throughout this complex arrangement.

The final product based on this putative renewed prototype does not have a definitive launch date at present. However, it is still possible that it may debut alongside the iPhone 12 series later in 2020.