Remember the bad old days when you had to frustratingly slide your device around a wireless charging pad to find the sweet spot?
Enter MagSafe, Apple's magnetic charging and accessory-attachment system, first used in iPhones in 2020.
Using magnets to align wireless chargers is one of those simple but genius ideas that changes everything.
It’s such a good idea that the Wireless Power Consortium, an industry group, adopted it for Qi2.2, which is just starting to roll out.
Qi2.2 is explicitly based on MagSafe, and brings things like magnetic charger alignment to Android phones. (It’s a cross-platform standard, so it applies to Apple devices, too.)
It also brings 25-watt fast charging — and the iPhone 16 and later already support it (if you’re running iOS 26).
The Qi2.2 spec allows the device and the charging accessory to identify each other and negotiate the highest power level that’s safe, within strict thermal thresholds.
In real-world use, that often means bursts of high-power juicing followed by lower-power cooling-off periods.
The new standard is a huge benefit not just for Android users, but also for iPhone owners. It will help create an ecosystem of standardized, higher-power, magnet-friendly chargers that’s not reliant on Apple.
It’s still early days, but we’ve included a couple of Qi2.2 battery packs in our roundup of the best portable power banks.
The buying guide showcases power banks for everyone, from power users to those who prize portability above all else. If you just got a new phone, it might be time to look at a new power bank, too.
Also in today’s newsletter:
On Monday morning, Apple rolled out bug fixes and security patches across all its platforms. On mobile, the updates mostly impact the latest devices.
M5-powered MacBooks are about to enter mass production, which means they should launch within the next six months.
If you’ve ever wanted to pore over 163 pages of secret iPhone 16e schematics, the Federal Communications Commission has got your back.
Apple’s Find My saved our backs again this weekend when a set of keys went walkies. We located them thanks to a keychain not unlike this one, which is on sale now. Our Find My-challenged Roku remote is still AWOL, though.
The same large language model that powers Apple Intelligence is now available to third-party app developers — is this good or bad though lol?
My email is overloaded with spam, and now that garbage is starting to come in through text messages, too — which for me is a huge red line in the sand. Email is already ruined, but not beloved texting! Luckily, it’s dead easy to set up spam text message filtering — here’s how.
— Leander Kahney, EIC.
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Tweets of the day
Xiaomi knows no boundaries
— #CID (#@theonecid)
3:08 PM • Sep 26, 2025
Xiaomi copied the iPhone 17 Pro so much that even the Xiaomi 17 Pro’s case fits it perfectly
The height and width seem to be the same 😭
— #Noah Cat (#@Cartidise)
1:29 PM • Sep 29, 2025
The original 2007 iPhone cost $499 ($779 today), almost the same as the iPhone 17!
— #Ripudaman (#@mrtechsense)
12:08 PM • Sep 28, 2025
It's kind of sad that Jony Ive now spends his genius designing completely unattainable objects, like this $4,800 lantern. It's absolutely beautiful, and designed for no one to own.
— #dustin curtis (#@dcurtis)
9:53 PM • Sep 27, 2025
Wallpaper of the day
4K angry Kitties 😼
— #Universal arts & Wallpapers (#@Universal4karts)
3:08 PM • Sep 28, 2025
One more thing ...
My college fund came from my dad paying $50 for a Ford Falcon or some other beat-up car that didn’t run, working on it for a few weeks, and selling it for $250 — and not telling the IRS.
Today’s poll
Will you be watching Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime show?
Results from last Friday’s poll: What Apple Watch do you wear?
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