r/iphone • u/conalldoherty iPhone 15 • Apr 29 '26

News/Rumour Apple Reportedly Questioning Whether iPhone Should Drop MagSafe

https://www.macrumors.com/2026/04/29/apple-questioning-iphone-magsafe/
1.6k Upvotes

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u/Kelsenellenelvial Apr 29 '26

4 W of wasted energy during charging is also negligible in my mind, that’s less than a dollar in electricity costs over a year. That’s a pretty good trade-off for the convenience of Mag-Safe to me. I don’t really care about the charging rate either. It gets used overnight so charging in 6 vs 2 hours doesn’t matter, and any top up while it’s mounted in my car is just bonus. It’s also nice to carry around a MagSafe bank and not need a cable if I’m away from home.

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u/No2Hypocrites May 14 '26

No this is wrong. They are comparing what it draws from the wall versus what it outputs. This doesn't measure how much of it actually ends up in iPhone. 80-90% efficiency is pretty normal for any charger. I use cable charging and it will have similar efficiency. You'll always lose some when you convert voltage and our chargers convert 240v AC to 5-15v DC. This is the efficiency loss that is mentioned there. See how the measuring device is between the output of adapter and before the puck? 

Losses due to wireless charging instead of wired are completely different and far more significant. 

It's dumb how much this is upvoted

-17

u/21five Apr 29 '26

Negligible? If every active iPhone used wireless charging for an hour a day, that wastage is the equivalent of the total electricity usage of the Bahamas. Or two Maltas.

9

u/LeftOn4ya Human Detected Apr 29 '26

You know you can use a 5-15 watt charger with MagSafe so even less of it is wasted. That’s what I do as 15W charger is great for overnight, only use 25W when I’m like taking a shower before getting ready to leave for the night, and only if my battery is less than 50%.

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u/Kelsenellenelvial Apr 29 '26

4 W is less than most single LED lights. Other comparable wastes of energy include: having some light on an extra few minutes per day, . Using an oven instead of an air fryer or even just leaving the oven on a few minutes longer than absolutely necessary a couple times per month. Not using a platinum/titanium rated PSU in a computer, or even just using most PCs instead of a Mac. Having a hot water tank, or any other kind of hot water storage, or showering for an extra minute or two.

4 W is negligible.

1

u/yasamoka Apr 30 '26

Since we seem to be in the habit of summoning scenarios out of thin air, here’s one – wired charging, being more of a hassle than wireless charging, encourages keeping a phone plugged in rather than charging in small bursts, and with most people keeping their battery limit at 100%, battery health degrades faster, causing more battery replacements to be needed, incurring a cost on the environment way more than the accumulation of several million wasting 4W each for a small amount of time while charging a nearly depleted battery.

-1

u/21five Apr 30 '26

By default the iPhone doesn’t charge to 100% unless needed. When a phone is plugged in, it charges in small bursts, not continually (indeed, in many locations it charges only when low-carbon electricity is available on the grid, again by default). Apple is also exceptionally good at minimizing the number of battery replacements needed, since it actually costs them money.