Journalists at 9to5Mac have revealed that Apple is still working on reverse charging in the iPhone. The company wanted to introduce the feature along with the iPhone 14 Pro range, but failed to meet the deadline.
Reverse charging technology should allow the iPhone to be used as an accessory charger. The company has been developing its own solution at least since the iPhone 12. It was the one that discovered reverse charging hardware, but it was inactive and could only be used to charge the smartphone itself, for example with an external MagSafe battery.
Full reverse charging would allow any Qi-compatible device to be charged by the iPhone. The most obvious use case for the technology is charging AirPods headphones. Apple had planned to introduce the feature along with the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max, but the release had to be delayed due to the company not completing the development in time. The company's engineers have now resumed work.
The biggest issues are the charging speed and heat dissipation. The company is solving it software-wise, developing a utility to control the process automatically. A special user interface is also being developed, which will display information about the charging of the accessory.
