- Last week, Apple announced the new MagSafe Battery Pack,
and right away, there was all sorts of controversy.
Yes, controversy about a battery pack.
Twitter never fails to impress.
So let's talk about what the MagSafe Battery Pack does,
how it works, and how everyone jumps
to a ridiculous conclusion when it was announced,
which I'll save for the end of the video.
Okay, so for starters, this is Apple's new
MagSafe Battery Pack.
If you're unfamiliar, MagSafe is the magnetic array
that's built into the back of the entire iPhone 12 lineup
that allows you to attach accessories to your phone
with a snap.
That means that you'll need an iPhone 12,
12 Pro, 12 Mini or 12 Pro Max
in order to use the MagSafe Battery Pack.
Now I did a separate video
looking at Apple's MagSafe accessories and ecosystem,
which I'll link down below in case you missed it
along with the link to the battery pack itself.
Hit that subscribe button to stay up to date
on all future videos though.
Now there are a few unique characteristics
with Apple's MagSafe Battery Pack
that you won't find on other devices.
So let's go through each one,
starting with wireless charging.
To use the MagSafe Battery Pack as a wireless charger,
all you have to do is slap it on the back
of your iPhone 12 series device.
It attaches using strong magnets,
and it has a nice, strong connection.
You can shake your phone
and the battery isn't going anywhere
unless you choose to slide it off.
Now in this mode, it'll charge your iPhone at five Watts.
To me, that indicates that this is the device
that you'll want to attach to your phone,
ideally before your battery runs out.
So just keep it on your phone when it's in your pocket
or in your bag, for example.
And then you can just slip it off
when you actually want to start using your phone.
Now that isn't mandatory, of course.
You can certainly use your phone
just fine with it attached,
but it does add some obvious bulk.
If that bothers you, you can just remove it.
Now I see this more as a battery extender,
that just gives you a lot more battery life
than as something that I use when in desperate need
of a charge with a dying battery.
Just attach it
and let your internal and external batteries work together,
and you'll get a lot more out of them.
Now, obviously it'll fit differently depending
on the size of your iPhone.
I have all four of the iPhone 12 models here.
So here you can see on the 12 Mini,
it's basically a perfect fit,
matching up with the rear of the phone.
The iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro are the same size,
and here you can see that it doesn't cover as much,
since these devices are bigger.
But it still feels fine in the hand,
which was honestly a worry of mine.
Then there's the iPhone 12 Pro Max,
already a beast of a phone.
And when attach the MagSafe Battery Pack to this,
you can see there's still a lot
of the phone surface area surrounding it.
The Pro Max also has the largest internal battery
of the bunch as well,
so you can go longer on a full battery
before needing an external charger.
Or you can do what I do, like I mentioned earlier.
Just put it on when you aren't using the phone,
and then when you want to use it,
take it off and just don't deal with the bulk.
Now, when the battery pack is attached to your iPhone,
you can see the charge status right on the lock screen.
It'll even give you a notification telling you
how much of a charge it'll be able to give your iPhone.
And yes, the battery will work
even if you have your phone inside of a MagSafe case.
It'll charge is fine
and the case doesn't make it any less stable.
Up next, let's talk about using the MagSafe Battery Pack
in wired mode.
Now, when I say wired mode,
I mean plugging in a lightning cable into the battery
while using it to charge your iPhone 12.
When using a power adapter that's 20 Watts or higher,
you're able to charge your phone at 15 Watts
rather than the five Watts you get when using it wirelessly.
And it'll use the extra power
to charge up the battery pack itself.
Now aside from viewing the charge level on your lock screen,
there's also a visual LED indicator
on the battery itself.
As it pertains to charging power when plugged in,
this is essentially a similar charge experience
to using the MagSafe charger accessory,
which will also charge your phone at 15 Watts.
But then there is what might be the most interesting mode,
which is using your iPhone
to charge the MagSafe Battery Pack.
Some people will incorrectly refer to this
as reverse wireless charging.
But there isn't anything reverse about it.
It's the exact same charging tech,
except your phone is what's sending the charging power.
The same way that the battery sends charging power
to the phone.
So if you have the MagSafe Battery Pack on your iPhone
and then plug a lightning cable into your phone,
it'll charge both your phone and the battery pack.
You might be wondering why this would be necessary,
if we just talked about simply plugging
the charging cable into the battery pack itself.
Well, one situation could be using CarPlay.
You would get in your car and you plug in your phone
to get CarPlay working,
and there's no need to plug a separate cable
into the battery pack to charge it up.
Your phone would do that for you.
Now, the nice thing about the MagSafe Battery Pack is that
it will stay usable for several generations of iPhone,
since it's unaffected by the size and shape of your phone.
When you look at previous charging cases
from Apple and others,
you knew that you'd only be able to use them
for a year or two,
since the shape and design of the iPhone would change
and it would no longer fit into that case that you bought.
With the battery pack,
the size and shape for the iPhone doesn't matter.
All you need is MagSafe,
which I think we'll be seeing on the iPhone
for many years to come.
Before we address the MagSafe Battery controversy,
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And once again, big thank you to CleanMyMac X
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Okay, let's get into it.
Here's why everyone was wrong
about the MagSafe Battery Pack.
It all came down to how much power it packs inside.
You see people love using milliamp-hours
to compare battery life of various devices,
which is really an unreliable spec.
When they saw that the MagSafe Battery Pack
only had 1,460 milliamp-hours,
or about half the milliamp-hours of an iPhone 12,
the hate started flowing.
This is why we don't play the spec game.
You see, unless two devices use the exact same voltage,
milliamp-hours can't be used
as a reliable comparative number.
You've got to look at the watt hours instead.
All iPhone 12 models use 3.81 volt batteries.
And the MagSafe Battery Pack has double the voltage, at 7.62
and therefore a higher watt hour rating
than the iPhone that it's charging.
This means that the MagSafe Battery Pack
can provide more power to an iPhone
than its milliamp-hours rating would imply.
The iPhone 12 has a 10.78 watt hour battery,
while the MagSafe Battery Pack
has an 11.13 watt hour battery.
In other words, it doesn't pack half the power
of an iPhone 12.
It actually has a slightly larger battery
than the iPhone 12 has.
It should be noted that wireless charging
isn't very efficient,
but having a magnet keep things perfectly aligned
does help in that area.
But to be clear, no, the MagSafe Battery Pack
does not just have half the power of an iPhone 12,
despite what you may have seen all over social media.
You can pick one of these up right now for $99.
Again, link down in the description.
But let me know, will you be picking this up
or do you have other mobile charging recommendations
that you prefer?
Let me know in the comments
and I will meet you there for further discussion.
Hit that like button if you enjoyed this video
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Thank you so much for watching as always guys.
I appreciate your support.
I'm Andru Edwards and I will catch you in the next video.