POP Charger Is A Go... Again

A project was on Kickstarter a while back called the POP charger. This was a charging device for portable gadgets such as tablets and smartphones that had an integrated Apple 30-pin charger connector and a USB port. The device funded on Kickstarter and then things went bad for the developers of the project.

Apple refused to give the project approval because of the design running afoul of rules regarding the Lightning adapter. Those rules had to do with Apple disallowing anything that is also capable of charging competing gadgets. This left the designers of the project with backer money in hand being forced to announce that the project was canceled.

There were about 1000 backers of the project at the time and there was significant concern about how the company would get the money back to the backers. Luckily, for the developers of the charger, Apple relented changing the guidelines for Lightning connectors allowing the project to move forward.

The developers of the project had already announced the cancellation and pending refunds to the backers. Another e-mail went out after Apple changed its rules notifying backers that no refunds will be issued and the project is moving forward as intended. The project was seeking $50,000 and ended up raising $139,170.

[via Gigaom]