Crystal Glass iPhone Docks, The Perfect Way to Shed Some Cash

crystal-tat

Imagine, if you will, the world of the overprivileged, the domain of that elite group of people who long ago bought everything they wanted or needed, people whose only way to get rid of their pile of cash is to fritter it away, Brewster’s Millions-style, on expensive, glittery trash.

For these lucky individuals the price of an object is its most compelling spec, followed closely by novelty. Take the Vertu series of phones, for example, which hover around $10,000 apiece and offer such modern conveniences as GPRS connections, or color screens. Can I interest you in a $200 corkscrew, sir? Are you sure? It is made of woolly mammoth tusk, you know. Ahh, I shall wrap it for you now.

To these people, an iPhone dock cast in glass is the perfect object. The CrystalDock is nothing more than a single blob of lead-crystal glass poured into a mold (”by hand”, of course), polished, fitted with a connector and dropped into a box. The price? An satisfyingly foolish €200, or around $250 $200. There’s even the option to “upgrade” to a more sophisticated model, the €350 ($350) Aurora. This wonderful frippery is “hand-painted with platinum” and when your current-gen iPhone no longer fits, it will make the perfect Clue-style murder weapon to safe-gaurd your inheritance from that cheating wife of yours. Available now, unfortunately.

CrystalDock [Calypso Crystal. Thanks, Ales!]


Finite Elemente’s Hohrizontal 51 iPod / iPhone dock is its own shelf

The world needs another iPod / iPhone dock like it needs another billion gallons of oil floating around in the Atlantic, but there’s something eerily seductive about Finite Elemente’s latest piece. The Hohrizontal 51 is no average dock, and in our estimation, it’s a design element first and Apple accessory second. Designed to be wall mounted and hold up to 55 pounds, this stunning shelf integrates an iPod / iPhone dock into itself, and the inbuilt speakers / video outputs make it even more functional. There’s plenty of space for a bedroom-sized HDTV, and if you’re careful, maybe even an iMac. Too bad the $660 MSRP all but eliminates the hope of you ever springing for one, but hey, if you ever needed encouragement to sharpen your carpentry skills, you needn’t look further than the source link below.

Finite Elemente’s Hohrizontal 51 iPod / iPhone dock is its own shelf originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 03 May 2010 11:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Pioneer announces CD ripping, Internet radio playing, DLNA sporting iPod docks

Up until this point, when Pioneer and iPhone were uttered in the same sentence (or the same Engadget post) it’s been in the guise of some sort of integration with an existing product (such as a car stereo or home theater hardware). This time around, however, the consumer electronics company is debuting a line of a/v docks that, truth be told, don’t look nearly as boring as most do to these jaded blogsters. All of the kit included herein feature 2.1 speakers, HDMI, component video, and composite video out, and Bluetooth audio streaming. Of all of these, the HTD Series (XW-NAV1K-K) is the “jack of all trades,” featuring a DVD/CD player, FM tuner, USB connectivity for external storage, CD-to-MP3 ripping, and “scaling of DVD video to 1080p near HD resolution” via HDMI. Available in June with an MSRP of $299. For someone with simpler needs (and greater means) the Audition Series (XW-NAS3/-K) “unparalleled reproduction of compressed audio files” come April, for an MSRP of $449. Last but not least, the Duo Series systems sport dual docking ports for two different iPods or iPhones and a Double Shuffle feature for continuous playback of music between the two docked players. The XW-NAC1-K ($349) is a more modest device, while the XW-NAC3-K ($449) adds a number of features to the basic dock, including DLNA 1.5 home network support, vTuner Internet Radio, external storage support via USB, and more. Both these bad boys will be available in May. PR after the break.

Continue reading Pioneer announces CD ripping, Internet radio playing, DLNA sporting iPod docks

Pioneer announces CD ripping, Internet radio playing, DLNA sporting iPod docks originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Apr 2010 13:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iRetrofone Base: perfect for homes with cutting-edge GPRS reception

Still looking for that perfect iPhone dock? Struggling to convince ma and pa that ditching the landline really is the best thing to do? Freeland Studios is up for helping with both quandaries, as the handmade iRetrofone Base provides both a perfect resting place for your iPhone (or any phone, really) and a pinch of vintage to boot. Cast from resin with the utmost care, this here adornment can be ordered in both black and clear, though you’ll have to wait around a fortnight for one of the $195 devices to actually ship. Up next? A resin-based bag phone holster for those who constantly lose their smartphone between the seat and center console. Thanks for repeating yourself, history.

iRetrofone Base: perfect for homes with cutting-edge GPRS reception originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Apr 2010 07:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Retro Dial-Style iPhone Phone Dock

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This beautiful iPhone dock might cost $195, but it will last longer than you. Cast one at a time, by hand, the resin dock and phone handset has a little cutout in which your iPhone can lie and rest whilst you place and answer calls via the retro-hefty earpiece.

You do need to run Apple’s white cable to the iPhone to connect (we assume that, as the phone comes from an Etsy maker, it is not licensed for a built-in connector), but you can hook up another USB cable round back to charge and sync the iPhone.

I used to use a real old phone like this one, converted to fit modern sockets but complete with the original, crackly charcoal-filled mic and speaker. It was terrible to use, but a lot of fun. Combine this dock with AT&T’s legendarily bad coverage and one of the many rotary-dialing iPhone Apps in the store and you could almost be back in the 1930s. Currently sold out.

iRetrofone Base [Etsy]


Henge Docks: finally, a well designed docking station for Apple’s MacBook line

We’d love to say that many have tried, but really, the bona fide docking station market dried up years ago in every sector save for enterprise, and while a few companies have served up “universal” alternatives, none of them were particularly well-designed. Out of nowhere, Henge Docks has emerged in order to provide a solution to your MacBook docking woes, and we’ve got to say — for a first try, the products being offered up here look mighty fine. Designed to work with most modern MacBooks as well as 13/15/17-inch MacBook Pros, these all-white stands hold your machine vertical while providing seamless access to desk-strapped peripherals (a monitor, iPod dock, mouse, heated USB blanket, etc.) It also uses Apple’s own MagSafe adapter, and your optical drive is still flipped out if you need to access it. The 13-inch MBP model is available now for $59.95 to $64.95, while every other flavor is available for pre-order; check out a video after the break if you’re having issues pulling the trigger.

Continue reading Henge Docks: finally, a well designed docking station for Apple’s MacBook line

Henge Docks: finally, a well designed docking station for Apple’s MacBook line originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 19 Apr 2010 17:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Desk Phone Dock spotted in the wild

Still harboring some lingering doubts that the Desk Phone Dock is as real as you hoped it to be? Then it looks like you can now cast those worries aside, as our pals at Engadget Chinese have spotted the device in the wild following its debut at the China Sourcing Fair. Unfortunately, there’s still no word on a release date, but the dock will reportedly run $150 “or more,” and it does seem to work just as promised, with the speaker at least loud to be heard on a crowded trade show floor. Head on past the break for a quick video, and hit up the source link for plenty more hands-on shots.

Continue reading Desk Phone Dock spotted in the wild

Desk Phone Dock spotted in the wild originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 13 Apr 2010 03:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HTC EVO 4G shows up in Sprint inventory, shots of the accessories surface

Need something to wash that Kin marketing out of your mouth? How about some new tidbits on the superphone to end all superphones? For whatever reason, the HTC EVO 4G has showed up in Sprint’s inventory, a couple months early by all accounts. It’s carrying a completely reasonable $5,555 pricetag, and the appropriate HTC A9292 model number. If that doesn’t quite satiate your EVO 4G thirst, LeakDroid has managed to get shots of those EVO 4G accessories we’ve been hearing about, including a home dock, extended battery case, colored silicon sleeves, and a car dock. Hit up the source link for the shots.

[Thanks to an anonymous tipster for the inventory screen]

HTC EVO 4G shows up in Sprint inventory, shots of the accessories surface originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 12 Apr 2010 15:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The $5 iPad Dock

e4-ipad-dock

For €4 (just over $5, or the price of a cup of expensive Seattle chain-store coffee), you could have yourself this rough but functional iPad dock. It comes from David Rudolph Bakker, Martijn Aslander and Simon Blazer, last seen in the pages of Gadget Lab with their ingenious binder-clip cable keeper.

Or, with an old block of wood, a saw, a chisel and a half-hour of your time, you could make your own free wooden dock. It is simply a chunk of ild tree with a channel cut out to hold the iPad at an angle, and a further section hacked out so you can get to the home button. It is limited: you can’t charge the iPad if you’re using it in portrait mode. Likewise, the speaker could get a little muffled by the wood.

But given that the iPad’s battery runs out just this side of forever, and that wood is both light and non-scratching, and this could be a great travel-stand. The €4 version, from Holland (it is inspired by the country’s national shoe, the clog), will be available soon, and by then David assures us it will be more polished (literally). Until then, get cutting.

€4 iPad Dock [Lifehacking. Thanks, David!]


Behold, the Nexus One car dock… and no, you still can’t buy it (update: oh, yes you can!)

Mind you, this isn’t the first time we’ve gotten a glimpse at Google’s first-party car dock for the Nexus One; it got teased briefly back in February in the course of the phone’s video docu-mercial series, yet we’re well into the Spring months here and you still won’t find any mounted on windshields. We’re honestly not so sure how it can take four solid months for two corporate heavyweights — Google and HTC, with a combined market cap of around $200 billion — to put something like this together, but considering how prominently free Google Maps Navigation plays into Android’s strategy these days, we’d argue there should be some serious pressure behind the scenes to get this thing launched. There’s no launch date just yet, but the pretty picture comes courtesy of some new official documentation on the dock in Google’s Nexus One website, touting its built-in speakers and charging capability — so we’re figuring (or at least hoping) that publishing this stuff is one of the last steps before these guys start taking orders. The dude who dredged up the help page says that he briefly saw the dock listed on Google’s Nexus One order page for $55, $10 more than you’ll pay for the desktop dock; that sounds about in line with what we’d expect, and it’s still a hell of a value considering the additional street cred it affords your ’77 Gremlin.

Update: And wouldn’t you know, the dock just went on sale for $55. Enjoy!

Behold, the Nexus One car dock… and no, you still can’t buy it (update: oh, yes you can!) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Apr 2010 19:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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