Before anyone goes off on a rant about me promoting Apple products again, I will say that I am posting this for informational purposes - because this sort of thing never gets talked about or is never mentioned in Apple's advertising.

I had a desk dock for my Droid, and also bought the universal dock for my iPhone. I have my phone docked at work most of the time to keep the battery charged and also have a small set of speakers for playing music. I also use these devices in the car with an FM transmitter as I like to listen to podcasts. If any of you have used your smartphones or iPods for this purpose, you'll know that the volume output of the device needs to be set to prevent distortion. I have found that the volume needs to be set differently for my speakers than the FM transmitter. I also bought an FM transmitter for the car that is designed to work with the iPhone - it uses the 30 pin connector rather than the headphone jack.

Having said that - I have discovered that my iPhone "remembers" the volume setting for each device I dock it with. When I drop it into the universal dock, the volume switches automatically to where I had previously set it. Same with the FM transmitter. With the Droid, I always had to adjust the volume down when I docked it as I had the volume set at the max for the loudest ringer so it could be heard when operating machinery. When I undock the iPhone, the volume switches to max again - for the same reason. Also, I always had to plug the speaker input cable into the headphone jack on the Droid to play music. Apple has this port on the back of the dock itself - I can just leave the cable plugged in all the time. This is very handy as I can just grab the phone and run without having to unplug the cable and readjust the volume again. This may seem minor, and in the grand scheme of things it is, but just a couple of little details that Apple just seems to get right that apparently these other companies are not thinking of. It is little things like this that I have found all across my Apple products that just make them easier products to use.

One thing I wish Apple would do differently with their dock - the dock comes with several inserts that you pop into it, depending on the device you wish to use it with. Since there are differences in size and shape between the different generations of iPhone and iPods, you choose the insert for your device. The problem is, none of the inserts will work if you have the device in a case. I wish they would make the dock slightly larger and deeper - and give companies that make cases the option of designing an insert that can be purchased to work WITH the case. I have worked around this by removing the insert completely - and then the iPhone will dock with the case on it. The bad part is, without an insert there is no support of the phone other than the dock connector. Soooo, I dragged out my 30 yr old box of Legos and created a solution! I superglued a Lego behind the dock and made a support. The blue piece can be popped off and something else snapped on there for the next iPhone!  :)  This supports the back of the phone very well - in fact, it is much more stable in the dock than the bare phone in the original insert.

 

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