The Complete Dock For iPhone 5, iPad And Xoom (!) [Kickstarter]

By

1349267752.jpg

Apple’s Universal Dock is anything but universal. It won’t work with any iPads, it won’t work with the iPhone 5, and it sure as hell won’t fit a Motorola Xoom. And unless you’re using it two-handed, and you’re wide awake, it doesn’t even work very well with the iPhone or iPod Touch.

The Complete Dock, on the other hand, works with almost anything. Hell, if you wanted to dock your cruise ship in it you probably could.

The Complete Dock is milled from a single, weighty chunk if aluminum, and thanks to a clever modular design and a reversible back support, it works with all iPads, and all recent iPhones, whether in a case or out.

The dock connector (supplied by you) peeks through a hole in the base, whilst the angled back bracket can be flipped to accommodate thinner or fatter iDevices. It is also heavy enough to stay put when you try to yank your iPad out, something Apple’s iPad dock certainly doesn’t do — as I discover every morning when I wake up to my iPad’s alarm.

1349267781

But the real clever trick is in the base. You can remove the 30-pin dock connector holder altogether and replace it with one that’ll clamp a microUSB plug in place or — in future — the iPhone 5’s Lightning connector. So you see that the Complete Dock is more universal than the Universal Dock, by far.

Price? Well, it’s a Kickstarter project so technically you’re not pre-ordering, but offering your financial support in return for a (possible) future gift. And the minimum pledge is $59 right now, with the further promise of your first “dock module change” for free. Great for early adopting iPhone 5 owners.

Me? I’m going the cheap route, and just supergluing my Apple Dock to my nightstand.

Kickstarter

Newsletters

Daily round-ups or a weekly refresher, straight from Cult of Mac to your inbox.

  • The Weekender

    The week's best Apple news, reviews and how-tos from Cult of Mac, every Saturday morning. Our readers say: "Thank you guys for always posting cool stuff" -- Vaughn Nevins. "Very informative" -- Kenly Xavier.