Tom Brady, John Stockton…and the iPhone’s Universal dock adapter?

What do they have in common? If you said “All three wear the number 12,” you’re both a sports fan and a true iPod geek.

While picking up my iPhone yesterday, I also grabbed Apple’s $9 iPhone Universal Dock Adapter 3-pack, which includes, not one, not two, but three dock inserts. These iPhone-specific inserts let you use your the phone in any dockable iPod accessory — speakers, home-stereo docks, and the like — that use Apple’s Universal dock design. Each Universal dock adapter is branded with a number indicating the iPod models it fits, and, as it turns out, the iPhone’s adapter number is 12.

(Unlike all recent iPods, which include such an adapter, you must purchase it separately for the iPhone. On the other hand, you get three, which is nice if you have more than one Universal-dock accessory.)

I tested the adapters with a number of speaker systems and they indeed fit perfectly. Of course, that doesn’t mean all Universal-dock accessories actually work with the iPhone; we’ll have more on that soon.

That said, I’m scratching my head over this bit of text on Apple’s product page:

The adapters are also designed to enhance the acoustics of iPhone during speakerphone calls.

The only think I can figure is that, by including some open space near the front of the iPhone’s bottom edge, the adapter doesn’t block as much sound — from the speakerphone or into the microphone — when the iPhone is in a dockable acccessory as it would have if it fit the bottom of the iPhone tightly.

Category: Accessories

Posted by Dan Frakes on Jun 30 2007, 6:33 PM ET

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