iPhone 11 Pro Max Teardown Reveals Possible Bilateral Wireless Charging Feature

iFixit has performed its teardowns of Apple’s iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro Max. One of the biggest questions is whether evidence of rumoured bilateral wireless charging (apparently ditched at the last minute) can be found in these latest iPhones.

According to iFixit, the new larger battery, in an L shape, has two connectors, which is new. According to some testing by iFixit, here’s what they found:

• With the phone powered on, we disconnected the lower battery connector and the phone stayed on and charged via the Lightning port, but not over wireless charging. Seems this extra connector is a direct line to the wireless charging coil, which could be an important feature for bilateral charging!
• What’s more, when we reconnected the cable, our phone displayed a momentary temperature warning before returning to normal. We suspect it lost contact with an important battery temperature sensor and shut itself down; this sounds a lot like a reverse wireless charging heat management feature to us.

iFixit suspects with two battery connectors, a future software update could possibly unlock bilateral wireless charging as a feature.

As for the new battery in this year’s larger iPhone, iFixit says, “The iPhone 11 Pro Max’s powerhouse pumps out 3969 mAh at 3.79 V, for a total of 15.04 Wh. That’s a whopping 2.96 Wh more than the XS Max battery, and 1.52 Wh less than the Galaxy Note 10+ 5G battery.”

We’ll have more coverage of the iPhone 11 Pro Max with our current hands-on over the next week or so.