Apple’s iPhone dock looks good, but has a couple of big problems. It doesn’t accommodate cases and it hangs onto your iPhone and won’t let go. The ODOC stand fixes both these issues, and looks great too.
This is the Arcam rCube, a high end speaker dock for iPhone and iPod touch. It’s a large-ish, solid cube weighing 11lbs, beautifully styled to match all your Apple stuff. It looks great, sounds fantastic, and offers some useful non-wifi wireless playback functions; but it costs a fortune.
As far as Kickstarter projects go, this one has definitely piqued our interests. Unlike the “cheap, lightweight afterthoughts” that comprise the vast majority of most iPhone docks, the Elevation Dock looks like it has the potential to be one of the highest quality docks we’ve ever seen.
If you love the convenience of your iPhone but miss having a large slab of bakelite on your shoulder while gabbing, your angst is over. This retro-style dock marries a polished oak and brass base, an iPhone dock, and a bluetooth-equipped handset to allow you to experience a century of telecommunications in one fell swoop.
Now here’s something else you don’t see every day: musician and entrepreneur Jean Michel Jarre has introduced the AeroDream One, an 11 foot tall technological marvel that combines an all-purpose iDevice dock and a 10,000W stereo system for the ultimate in colossal home entertainment.
In the last few years a kind of cat and mouse game has evolved between Apple Legal and some of the more daring (and creative) members of the Cult of Apple: tempting fate by selling Steve Jobs collectibles, and risking the wrath of Apple. How long before your Cease & Desist letter arrives?
Here are some of the more popular items created in the past few years.
Lucky me. I got the husband’s cast-off iPhone 3GS. But only after my old Razor phone fell in a lake. Although I do love the iPhone (who wouldn’t?), I am often forgetful and lazy with it. Meaning that I never charge it and never download photos to the computer.
This is where the Iomega’s SuperHero Backup and Charger for iPhone saves the day. This small portable dock charges your iPhone and downloads your data simultaneously.
So when I inevitably drop my iPhone in the garbage disposal, at least I won’t lose my address book.
The 150-year-old catalog giant Hammacher Schlemmer has released a classy iPhone stand that turns your device into a desktop handset.
Hammacher’s iPhone Desktop Handset looks good for cradling under your chin, and definitely does away with iPhone 4 proximity sensor issues.
Seems like old-school handsets are making a comeback. The handset is reminiscent of the iFusion Smartstation office phone/dock that premiered at Macworld last week. But the Hammacher handset plugs into the headphone jack instead of working via Bluetooth.
The Hammacher handset is $60, which seems a bit steep, but is cheaper than the $200 rotary-style iRetrofone Base.
Via Laughing Squid and Ubergizmo.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2011 — Pioneer launched its SmartCradle for the iPhone at its CES presser today, further proving that the aftermarket auto industry seems to be embracing the iPhone with rapidly increasing gusto.
They really pulled out the stops on this one, hardware-wise: a dedicated GPS receiver with an external antenna, which they said will give even newer iPod Touch models GPS capability; an accelerometer and gyro sensor for better location awareness; hands-free calling an integrated amplified speaker with the ability to vary volume based on ambient noise; and audio/video output. Of course, it’ll also charge the iPhone; Ted Cardenas, Pioneer’s director of marketing, made of point of this — but since the iPhone won’t last long with location services going, any dock even remotely similar already includes charging ability. Nary a whiff on price or availability yet.
When a company with as fabled a name as Bowers & Wilkins proffers up an iPod dock, one expects nothing less than enough oomph to satisfy even the most discerning audiophile, and enough svelteness to elicit a smile from even the most ardent aesthete. B&W’s first shot at a dock, the Zeppelin, certainly turned heads when it debuted in 2007 (at least, once word got out about it). But its sprawling, bulbous shape — and sprawling, bulbous, $600 pricetag — limited its appeal. Two years later the company followed with the Zeppelin Mini, a much smaller, less expensive dock that nevertheless tried to maintain the aesthetic and sonic reputation the company was known for.
But at $400, the Mini was still significantly pricier than almost any other dock sitting on, say, an Apple Store’s dock table. Then earlier this year B&W brought the price down to $300, placing it on a level field with other upper-mid-end docks — a league that seems to be gaining players at an almost alarming rate — and allowing it to stand out among its peers as the compact, high-performance star it is.
