Forget 5G: MagSafe could be the biggest reason to buy an iPhone 12

By now, you’ve probably read my colleague Nick Statt’s article on how the iPhone 12’s MagSafe Wireless Charging Cable opens up a future where iPhones won’t need ports at all.

That sounds futuristic! Now, let’s talk about something a little more practical … something that legions of people already do with their phones.

We put them in cases, thousands and thousands of different cases each year, to protect them from damage, place them on car docks, add fancy lenses, and most of all, reflect our personality and mood. We glued eye-catching finger rings and PopSockets, we glued stickers, anything to make them look and feel different from the same damn iPhone our friends, family, neighbors, and strangers are carrying.

Recently, Apple allowed iPhone owners to reimagine their entire iOS 14 home screen with custom widgets and app icons, and teens have gone to great lengths to change the skin of their entire phone with Animal crossingHarry Potter Star Wars, Wonderful, Twilight and other topics. Despite the rise of apps like Widgetsmith, there is a lot of friction that prevents most of us from doing the same.

But with MagSafe, Apple is literally eliminating the friction of customizing your iPhone. Magnets make it very easy.

Right away, you can see how much easier it would be to trade cases each morning, or perhaps before you go out for the night (once society starts doing that kind of thing again). Today’s cases have claws that grip the edges of your phone, but with magnets, there would be less need to pry them out of the corners of your phone, or press hard on the expensive camera module just to get enough pry to open. . off.

Just as important, these MagSafe cases can be stacked with a MagSafe charger and other compatible accessories. You can attach more than one at a time.

Have you ever had to remove or return a case because your wireless charger couldn’t transmit its power reliably? Have you ever had to glue a steel plate to your case to have it magnetically attached to the base of your car? Have you ever had a special In case you had to pop up every time you wanted to add an extra lens, or a kickstand, or carry credit cards, or secure your phone to your bike, or one slim enough to insert into your drone controller ?

Were those special cases disgustingly ugly and devoid of personality? I bet some of them were.

In theory, MagSafe means that your phone’s case, charging capabilities, and connection points no longer have to be a package. Each case can be designed to transmit wireless power, and you can easily remove any accessories (like your credit card wallet or lens mount) that might get in the way. Do you want to change your PopSocket or the phone ring? No need to wear off the adhesive; magnets can allow you to change them several times a day.

Heck, the magnetic car springs of tomorrow may not need you to buy a case at all, they could magnetically grip the back of your phone. Additional steel plates may disappear. And instead of buying a big, sturdy wireless charging dock like the one I use today, you could imagine a simple sleeve for Apple’s existing MagSafe cable.

Image: DJI

And why limit our imagination to the types of accessories that are already attached to a case? Grab DJI’s Osmo Mobile 4 Motorized Smartphone Stabilizer, which features detachable magnetic mounts so you can quickly get your phone out in a pinch. But you still have to connect the Osmo’s claw mount to your phone to get started and remove it when you’re done. What if it magnetically connects directly to your new iPhone?

Today’s drone controllers use clamping frames in a similar way to keep your phone securely connected. What if they had a collapsible MagSafe fixing plate in place?

What if instead of buying an extended battery case for your iPhone, you could quickly replace a magnetic battery? Lenovo and Motorola failed to keep modular phones sticking, but their Moto Mods modular component ideas were always pretty ingenious – I stuck with a Moto Z2 Play for quite some time. It loses some efficiency with wireless charging compared to direct copper contacts, but maybe some accessory manufacturer will try again.

Of course, many of these ideas depend on the strength of Apple magnets. PopSockets and ring holders won’t work particularly well if it’s too easy to remove them from the phone, and if a magnetic car mount can’t hold an iPhone 12 while you’re driving down a bumpy road, the claws will still win out.

Image: Otterbox

It may also depend on whether Apple will be a benevolent overlord or rule the MagSafe ecosystem with an iron fist, and we don’t know the answer to that yet. The magnets themselves are not proprietary, so in theory case and mount makers could easily take advantage of it, and the Qi wireless charging standard isn’t under Apple’s control either.

Still, Apple’s marketing videos have already shown us that the iPhone can also detect and react to “official” accessories, and in MagSafe’s case, it only offers full charge speed with certified charging pads. After years of making money from its MFi (Made for iPod / iPhone / iPad) certification and licensing program, it’s hard to imagine Apple giving up that revenue so easily.

Either way, this could be a lucrative new reboot for Apple’s accessory ecosystem, as there will be less friction to customization than ever before. Combined with the ease of charging your iPhone at bedtime, where numb hands can misalign the coils and today’s pads don’t perform well in bed, I feel like MagSafe might be the best new reason to buy an iPhone this year.

Cameras keep getting better, processors keep getting faster, and 5G will inevitably hit all phones, whether it’s Android or Apple. But no Android manufacturer has an accessory system like the iPhone 12.