Apple has had many brilliant ideas over the years, few better – in my opinion – than the MagSafe charger. So, if you’re one of the first people to get their hands on an iPhone 12 this weekend, you could be forgiven a sigh of disappointment when you realize that the optional MagSafe charger that works with the new iPhone isn’t MagSafe at all. At least, not in the same, ingenious way the original MagSafe chargers were.
MagSafe – a brief history
Apple first introduced the MagSafe charger way back in 2006, and it’s true to say the computing industry had never seen anything like it before.
The first MagSafe arrived with the MacBook Pro and the concept was brilliantly simple. The charger attached magnetically to the laptop, so that if you accidentally tripped over the power cord, the charger would simply pop clear and not send your $2,000 laptop hurtling towards a messy end with the floor.
Apple apparently got the idea from Japanese deep-fat fryers, which shipped with magnetic power connectors to prevent children being horribly burned if they tripped over the power cord and knocked the fryer off the counter. Apple’s MagSafe didn’t save lives, but it definitely saved millions of MacBook owners from expensive repairs or replacement laptops.
Indeed, it was a huge backward step when Apple started phasing out the MagSafe connector in 2016, replacing it with the USB-C chargers that have become commonplace on laptops. A little cottage industry of magnetic charger adapters has even sprung up, because the MagSafe is much missed by MacBook owners to this day – myself included.
The new iPhone MagSafe
It was something a shock, therefore, when Apple resuscitated the MagSafe brand for the new magnetic chargers that work with the four different models of the iPhone 12.
However, to call these new chargers MagSafe is arguably misleading, because they don’t have that same ‘safe’ release that the laptop chargers had. The phone is so lightweight that, if you were to accidentally trip over the cable, it would not detach from the charger.
In fact, as you can see from the video embedded below from Jonathan Morrison, the iPhone MagSafe charger is almost the exact opposite of the original MagSafe concept – it clings on so tightly that you can swing it around like rock stars swing a microphone.
They’re not keeping expensive devices ‘safe’ from harm in the same way the original MagSafe chargers did. The chargers don’t have any real safety benefits at all.
Right idea, wrong name
That’s not to say the MagSafe chargers for iPhone are a bad product. My colleague David Phelan has written an excellent review of the MagSafe for iPhone 12 here and I agree that it has many plus points, not least that it snaps the charger into exactly the right place on the back of the phone, eliminating one of the biggest irritations of current wireless chargers, where a slight misalignment results in the phone not being charged.
But it was wrong of Apple to reincarnate the MagSafe brand – a name that once had a crystal-clear meaning – for this particular type of charger.
If you’re considering an iPhone 12 and have been tempted by the MagSafe option, just remember not to cancel your accidental damage insurance.
