Starbucks will support iPhone wireless charging, after all, a new report says.
When Apple (AAPL) announced its iPhone 8 line and iPhone X at its press event on Tuesday, the company said that its new handsets would support wireless charging using an industry standard called Qi. There are a slew of accessories available now that support the Qi standard, meaning many of the devices users already have could wirelessly charge its new handsets.
And although Starbucks has supported wireless charging in its shops for years, its chargers support another standard called Powermat that the iPhone 8 and iPhone X don’t work with. That left many people wondering whether wireless iPhone charging wouldn’t be available at Starbucks.
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Chris Davies over at Slashgear, however, has confirmed that Starbucks (SBUX) will indeed support wireless iPhone charging. Davies spoke to Powermat CTO Itay Sherman, who said that the millions of charging pads around the world at Starbucks locations have software that allow them to support other wireless charging standards like Qi. All it needs to do is download some software and all of the pads across Starbucks locations will allow for iPhone charging.
However, Sherman also told Davies that only a handful of locations actually support iPhone wireless charging now. And the company didn’t say exactly when the software would be updated to allow for wireless charging across the entire company’s network.
That said, Starbucks did tell Davies at Slashgear that it anticipates iPhone wireless charging support should be available at all of its locations in time for the iPhone 8’s launch next week.