iOS 17.4 has seemingly added support for the Qi2 wireless charging standard for the iPhone 12 lineup. As pointed out by Macworld, new tests conducted on the iPhone 12 after updating to iOS 17.4 show that the device can now charge at 15 watts with compatible Qi2 chargers.
Qi2 is the next generation of the Qi wireless standard and is largely based on Apple’s proprietary MagSafe technology. Ever since its launch, the iPhone 12 lineup was limited to charging at a rate of 7.5 watts using previous-generation Qi chargers, but with the added Qi2 support, the device can now charge up much faster at 15 watts.
The iPhone 12 could already wirelessly charge at 15 watts with MagSafe chargers before iOS 17.4, but Apple limited those speeds to MagSafe-only chargers with Qi-only speeds limited to 7.5 watts. Apple has now removed this limitation for some reason, and what’s more interesting is that the company has not made a single mention of the change in iOS 17.4’s release notes.
Apple can retroactively support the Qi2 protocol even with iPhone hardware released before the standard’s introduction. The company explicitly mentioned adding Qi2 support to the iPhone 13 and iPhone 14 last year with iOS 17.2 and its accompanying release notes, while the iPhone 15 lineup always had Qi2 support out of the box.
