Yes, the iPhone 12 launched with 5G . Yes, it brought its flat-edged industrial design to the Apple community. It also had a trick up its sleeve. The MagSafe brand might have been recycled, but MagSafe for the iPhone was something more powerful: an integrated magnetic attachment point and wireless charging system.

This is Day 26 of 30 Days of iPhone, a look at the moments that shaped the smartphone era .

Bringing Back MagSafe To The iPhone With A Powerful Twist

Apple was late to the wireless charging race. AirPower was announced but never shipped. Instead, Apple adopted the Qi wireless charging standard, which offered compatibility with the widest range of accessories possible. Wireless charging still required alignment between the paired induction coils that sent and received power.

To create an elegant solution, Apple integrated the Qi charging system with a ring of magnets around the rear of the iPhone. The latter would automatically line up the former to create the most efficient charging connection possible. What was once a game of nudge, spin, and see if everything lights up became a magnetic click that lets power flow at Qi2’s higher 15W charging rate.

Apple also included NFC in the charging coils, so nearby accessories would also be picked up by NFC, allowing seamless handshaking and background connectivity. This wasn’t a charging system per se; Apple described it as a modular platform for accessories.

Giving Up The iPhone’s MagSafe To Android

Like the Lightning cable before it, the proprietary parts of the MagSafe system required manufacturers to license the technology for their accessories from Apple. Yet Apple contributed its magnetic alignment system to the Wireless Power Consortium for inclusion in the Qi2 standard. That move opened up the accessory market to connect not just to the iPhone but to any compatible phone.

This quickly became the standard, and you can see it in countless phones today. From battery packs and desktop holders to credit card wallets, camera rigs, and more, Apple solved a problem for the iPhone and then opened it up to the world.

This is Day 26 of 30 Days of iPhone. Yesterday, we looked at the introduction of computational photography in the iPhone X’s night mode .