You don’t like Apple. Got it.

Funny thing is, the article isn’t about Apple. It’s just a tech column written to fill space and meet a deadline. The non-Apple premise? Is wireless charging convenient or not? Ho hum.

P.S. While wireless charging is indeed not new, widespread adoption of the Qi standard is, helped along significantly when Apple signed on with last year’s iPhones. As with many other things, new tech is great, but multiple incompatible standards interferes with utility. As such, the ‘if it’s not on an iPhone it doesn’t exist’ phenomenon isn’t just about crass popularity. It’s a real thing. While Apple has minority smartphone market share, Android’s majority is scattered across a disorganized scrum of hardware manufacturers competing for crumbs specifically by introducing nonstandard bells and whistles. The result is that there are lots of things introduced scattershot into the marketplace that won’t matter until Apple incorporates it into their more tightly controlled ecosystem.

Everyone (including Apple users) complained when MacBooks came out exclusively with USB-C ports. Pearls were clutched over ‘dongle gate.’ In reality, Apple’s adoption of that standard is a boon to the entire industry. It’s faster and better than previous USB gear, but no one else has the power to make the leap that will incent peripheral manufacturers to start adopting it. Apple’s move will push widespread adoption years before it would happen otherwise. Happily, this means it won’t be obsolete before you can find gear that takes advantage of its faster data and higher power transfer rates.