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Comment by m4rtink | Hacker News Reader

A couple possible issues, mostly inherent to magnetic connectors like this:

* attracts everything magnetic and mettalic, not just the connector - need to be careful no to attract to many metal turnings, washers, etc. * the number of contact points & the quality of contact might not be enough for high speed communication * the contact pads/pins might be more exposed than normal connectors, so more likely to be damaged or accumulate dirt

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Apple avoided this by making it an "intelligent" port. There is a bit of handshake that occurs when connecting the magport charger. Until this handshake happens, the power does not turn on. When first connected the LED turns amber to indicate the connection has been made, but the electrons are not yet flowing. Once the handshake occurs, the electrons start flowing and the LED turns green.

It would be cool to go one step further and have the handshake enable an electromagnet.

That would be kind of pointless though, wouldn't it? The handshake only takes place after the cable has been physically connected to the port. You would need to manually guide the connector to where it needs to be and then keep it stationary until the handshake is ready (which might not be a very long time in human terms, of course).

The part I liked about the magnetic connection was that yanking the cable wasnt catastrophic. The secondary benefit was that the connector had basically zero depth.

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