AirPower conspicuously absent at today’s Apple event [Update: scrubbed from Apple’s site, too]

In the midst of Apple’s announcement of three new iPhone models, and a new Apple Watch, all of which will of course support wireless charging, one product that was conspicuous by its absence was Apple’s promised AirPower charging pad, or really any mention of wireless charging at all — a bullet point on a features slide fo the new iPhone models indicated “Improved Wireless Charging” but the feature wasn’t specifically mentioned by Apple executives. Apple announced its own wireless charger during last year’s event, saying at the time only that it would be coming sometime in 2018, likely alongside a new AirPods case, that was originally [rumoured] to be coming last December.

While Apple remains completely quiet about its plans for the new charging pad, several subsequent industry rumours suggested first that Apple might be ready to begin selling it last March, and when that timeline came and went, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman weighed in with word that it was on track for a September release, while adding that Apple was still struggling with the necessary technology to design AirPower with the “smart” features that it would require. While it’s certainly possible that Apple still plans to release the device this month, the lack of any mention of it whatsoever during today’s event — or any press releases on Apple’s Newsroom site — would suggest the likelihood that the company is still experiencing delays.

*[Update: 9to5Mac notes that Apple has also scrubbed all references to AirPower from its web pages, with only a single image of the charging mat remaining on Apple’s AirPods product page, which only makes mention of a coming AirPods charging case. AirPower was previously teased on the iPhone X page, but with the iPhone X having been discontinued, that page is no longer available on Apple’s site, and there is no mention of the device on any of the new iPhone product pages.