Apple proposes iPad wireless charging with a difference: power comes from the Smart Cover

Remember when Apple's Phil Schiller mentioned he wasn't into wireless charging? Well, what he specifically said was that he didn't dig "having to create another [charging] device you have to plug into the wall." In other words, Apple is probably looking for a simpler way to make the idea work -- and that's exactly what we're looking at in the patent drawings above, which are currently being weighed up by the USPTO after having been submitted back in 2011. They show an iPad's Smart Cover tricked out with an "inductive power transmitter" arranged to "wirelessly pass power" to a receiver housed within the tablet itself. The application mainly focuses on the use of magnetic attachments to trigger charging when the cover is closed, but it looks like the ultimate goal might be to use the cover as an additional battery that can keep an iPad charged up while it's on the move. That certainly sounds practical enough -- and it'd do away with the need for an additional charging accessory, which ought to keep Schiller happy for a while.