At first blush, I absolutely loved this iPhone speaker dock, crafted in the GlaDOS style aesthetic of an old iMac arm. And, undeniably, it looks great.
The problem is, it’s not a speaker, per se. Instead, it uses resonance to transmit the sound from your iPod, iPhone or other MP3 player into the hard surface of the table underneath it. The audio output is rated at 12W, with a built-in amp for a bit of a boost, but the inevitable result here is still going to be terrible sound.
What a pity. I always loved the lamp-style iMac. At $42, though, this is a waste of money as anything besides a conversation piece.
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
