Apple’s design conundrum: The future of MagSafe charging on the Mac
Rumors are abound that the MagSafe charging system is coming back to Apple’s MacBook line.
Everyone raves about how they hope MagSafe will return in the 2021 design refresh. And it’s easy to see why: A classic piece of Apple innovative design, a feature from the Steve Jobs era: a port that automatically detaches if the cable is yanked by a passing child or pet. A feature that could save from laptop from an early grave.
With Apple devices becoming lighter and thinner (read: more fragile), the company even included a magnetic power cable to a desktop computer for the first time this year.
Everyone is clamouring for MagSafe to return to the MacBook lineup, but I’m not so sure. In this article I’ll talk about why MagSafe sucks for my use-case, and what Apple would have to do to make a magnetic revival an improvement over its current systems.
The Issues with MagSafe
I run a 2015 15" Macbook Pro, and have used it 8 hours a day, most days, for the past six years. I travel a lot for work, setting up my workstation in a variety of environments, sometimes as many as five a day.
And MagSafe has been a struggle. It’s the only feature that has caused me downtime on this laptop in that whole time, probably about six week’s worth in total. Moving away from it is a major appeal of any upgrade (for me). Let’s talk about the issues.
First, the magnetic charger is great at picking up tiny bits of metal, and depositing them in the charging port. This causes a short. The first sign of a problem is the charging port getting scalding hot, twice burning my wrist so hard it blistered. One then has to spend half an hour trying to extract this tiny bit of metal from the magnetized charging port. If this happens on the road, and you don’t have a tiny flathead screwdriver, you’re out of luck. This has happened to me, in my use case, ~40 times.
Additionally, the charging cable is fragile. They fray at the laptop end. Because the cable is attached to the PSU, you have to get a whole new PSU when it fails. These are £60. I have three times had to wait for a replacement to come in the mail when it has failed suddenly. Within a year, my new power brick is already fraying at both ends, and is weirdly yellowed from use. (I wash my hands regularly, I promise!)
How USB-C charging solves these issues
Charging through USB-C has a number of benefits.
The cable is not connected to the power brick, so if it wears, it can be replaced by ant other USB cable. It can charge from any USB wall wart. It can be charged from a DC port in a car or plane. It can charge from any portable power bank. You can plug it into any port on the MacBook, meaning your charger doesn’t have to strain at an angle if your socket is on the opposite side of the laptop to the charging port.
Being able to have a cheap, ubiquitous, non-proprietary USB cable to charge is a major reason for me to want to upgrade. You could keep one at work and at home, so you don’t have to carry any cable around. You could buy a ten pack of USB cables and never have to experience charger-related downtime.
It’s a great solution. Until someone accidentally yanks your cable.
A Wishlist for MagSafe 3
Apple doesn’t go backwards.
Their design philosophy generally introduces something new which is so polished, it instantly makes its predecessor look old.
As such, I don’t believe for a minute they’ll revert to MagSafe 2. Instead, if we see a return to magnetic charging, it will be a new system which incorporates the benefits of both charging systems.
Apple’s current MagSafe offering is an optional QI system installed into the newer iPhones. This puck, which retails for £39, snaps onto the back of the phone with magnets. Introducing a similar coil to the MacBook, and using this as the standard charger across both line-ups could be a compelling idea, especially since the shift to M1 architecture means that the chips inside both the Mac and iPhones will have similar power requirements.
The big issue is: Where to put this? Apple tends towards thin laptops, so it would be difficult to put a heat-intensive component in the lid, and track power down to the battery in the base. Putting it on the palm rest risks cracking the screen if someone closes the laptop while charging, and putting it on the base would require the laptop to be upside down, and not in use, while charging. (Not that Apple is above such silliness).
Another potential solution is to somehow magnetize the USB-C cable. There are plenty of aftermarket break-away cables, but none of them are as well-implemented as would be required, requiring small and lose-able break-away cable segments which, presumable, remain in the laptop all the time.
It’s not a neat design, and it still depends on a proprietary cable, but Apple currently has a mix of open (QI on the iPhone) and proprietary (2W on the Apple Watch) charging standards — so introducing a new standard wouldn’t be unheard of.
Prediction time
OK! Here’s my best guess at what charging will look like on the new MacBook pro refresh.
- USB-C charging will remain as currently implemented. It’s just too good to say goodbye to. The only flaw is that it doesn’t break-away.
2. Some sort of non-mating, magnetised smart connector, probably on the edge of the device. The iPad lineup has had smart ports for years, which allow accessories such as keyboards to communicate with the device without needing a port. This could either have exposed metal terminals, like on the iPad, or depending on the power consumption of the M2 chip, be a wireless charging connector like on the Apple Pencil. Either way it will be magnetized, and pull-away easily when disturbed.
If this is the route Apple goes down, it will probably be sold as an optional extra, just like MagSafe on the iPhone.
3. U1 chip on the charger. This is maybe more wishful thinking than an actual prediction. The chip that makes the ‘FindMy’ system work with Apple’s new AirTags is tiny and cheap. In fact, since Apple makes its own chips now and owns the licensing of the FindMy network, it’s basically free. It would be great if all Apple Products, from headphones to chargers, came with the same functionality as an Airtag. It would definitely be a much more elegant solution than the one I found below.
Conclusions
The MagSafe issue is an interesting one, because it’s not often that Apple designs itself into a corner like this. Two solutions, each with its own clear design benefits, and a company-wide design mandate to always improve, and never leave a good feature behind. Any solution will have to find a delicate balance between functionality, durability, and replaceability, especially to please their ‘Pro-’ user base. As usual, we hope to be surprised by some dazzlingly elegant solution — a hope that is only occasionally, but magnificently, rewarded.
