Mysterious hardware in iPhone 11 hints at reverse wireless charging

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iPhone 11 Max Pro battery
We'll need bigger batteries for 5G.
Photo: iFixit

Buried in the iPhone 11 Pro Max are hardware quirks that iFixit suggests might be for reverse wireless charging, a feature reportedly planned and then dropped from this model.

Watch a video of techs from this repair company carefully disassembling Apple’s new flagship smartphone:

The video shows the massive battery, which reportedly has a 3,969 mAh capacity, significantly larger than the 3,174 mAh power cell in last year’s iPhone XS Max. This would help explain why time between recharges is up to 5 hours longer.

Vestiges of reverse wireless charging? Maybe.

Respected analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicted early this year that the 2019 iOS devices would have reverse wireless charging, sometimes called bilateral charging. This would have allowed them to not just wirelessly receive power but also send it to other Qi-compatible devices, perhaps giving a friend’s iPhone an emergency boost

But the reveal of the iPhone 11 series came and went without mention of this feature. Still, iFixit found what might be holdovers.

Its teardown discovered that the large L-shaped battery in the iPhone 11 Pro Max has two battery connectors, while previous handsets from this model needed only one. “There could be a number of reasons for this extra cable to exist, but bilateral charging is certainly one of them,” the company notes.

In addition, their teardown found a “mysterious new board sitting below the battery,” which iFixit also suggest could be related to bilateral wireless charging.

iFixit is still working on its detailed description of the internal components of the iPhone 11 Pro Max. This article will be updated if they turn up additional items of interest.

Source: iFixit

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