A recent leak claims that Apple might be considering removing MagSafe from its future iPhone line-up.
The claim stems from a prominent Weibo leaker, Instant Digital, who says the company is actively debating whether the magnetic charging and accessory standard should remain a fixture across the iPhone lineup.
The report explains that the mood inside Apple has moved from aggressive expansion of MagSafe to genuine uncertainty about its continued role, though the leaker stops short of specifying what any change to the feature’s status might look like in practice.
That uncertainty arrives at an awkward moment for the standard, given that MagSafe has spent the past five years building one of the most comprehensive third-party accessory ecosystems in consumer technology, covering wallets, cases, chargers, and stands from dozens of manufacturers built around the magnet ring specification Apple introduced with the iPhone 12 in 2020.
The debate also follows a notable reversal in Apple’s own approach to the feature, after the iPhone 16e launched as the first new iPhone in years to omit MagSafe entirely, drawing criticism from users who relied on the standard for car mounts and wireless charging, before Apple restored it with the iPhone 17e earlier this year.
The foldable iPhone Ultra, which will potentially carry a starting price of around $2,000, looks likely to launch without MagSafe regardless of the outcome of the internal debate, with dummy models of the device showing no visible indentations for the internal magnet array, a probable consequence of the handset’s reported 4.5mm unfolded thickness.
A completely removal across the entire iPhone lineup remains unlikely given that Qi2, the open wireless charging standard now widely adopted by Android manufacturers and accessory makers, builds directly on MagSafe’s magnet ring specification. This means that dropping the feature entirely would also sever Apple’s compatibility with that broader ecosystem.
Recent reports have suggested that the standard iPhone 18 faces component downgrades as Apple looks to reduce costs, a context that makes the MagSafe debate feel less like a theoretical exercise and more like one front in a broader conversation about which features justify their bill-of-materials contribution at each price tier.
Apple has not commented publicly on the claims, and no credible reporting has established a timeline for when any internal decision on MagSafe’s future across the iPhone range might be reached or communicated.
