Another day, another patent-based iPhone 5 rumour. Speculation is arising that the next iPhone may include wireless charging, if a recently granted patent is anything to go by. The wireless charging patent was among 27 new patents just granted to Apple by the US Patent and Trademark Office, but does this mean it will make an appearance on the iPhone 5?

Apple files a huge number of patents on a regular basis and this particular patent was applied for at the start of 2008. Since then, there have been four iPhone releases and not one of them has featured this technology. Apple may have been waiting for the patent to be granted before introducing the feature, but the fact that it has just been granted by the USPTO doesn’t really confirm anything.

However, there have been a lot of other rumours in the last few months that this would be a feature introduced to the 6th generation iPhone. The Samsung Galaxy S III includes support for wireless charging (even though the charging dock has not yet been released), so the technology is already workable, and the redesigned dock connector for the next iPhone seems to confirm that at least some sort of change will be made to the way the iPhone charges its battery. Perhaps it will just be a new proprietary charging cable, or maybe, just maybe, the iPhone 5 will indeed be cable free.

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