Apple#039;s iPhone 12 introduced MagSafe wireless charging in 2020
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While the iPhone 12 still doesn't reach the full charging speeds that Qi2 provides, it does charge slightly faster with the release of iOS 17.4.
Apple's MagSafe first launched as a Qi charging competitor on the iPhone 12 in 2020. Since then, the Qi2 standard has been released, which is more in line with MagSafe, but Apple continues to limit peak charging speeds.
MagSafe allows charging up to 15W, but currently any charger that is not certified by Apple can only charge at 7.5W. This is confusing because Apple brought its MagSafe technology to the Qi2 standard, and the iPhone 15 line now supports it, but older iPhones do not.
Or rather, they didn’t do this. According to Macworld, the iPhone 12 can now charge at faster speeds after updating to iOS 17.4.
A Macworld study using non-MagSafe chargers found that the iPhone 12 charged faster than before and even showed a Qi2 icon. Tests using Apple and third-party chargers show clear improvement.
More specifically, the iPhone 12 Pro Max was charged to 30% in 38 minutes using Apple's MagSafe charger. The Anker Qi2 MagGi wireless charger took 33 minutes to charge to 30%.
For a regular iPhone 12, charging to 30 percent on any charger took about 20 minutes. In theory, the Qi2 charger should be faster than Apple's MagSafe charger, which is based on the original Qi standard, but with longer charging times there are thermal considerations that will likely impact the speed.
