iPod Dock Extender
Man, one of my biggest pet peeves is that Apple made this cool ass universal dock connector with interchangeable dock sleeves. The Nano has a smaller one with the connector off to one side, the video has a bigger space so its rotund aass can fit in there. The mini and various others have different connectors too. I bought the Agent18 iPod video case it came with its own modified dock sleeve so it would fit into the ipod dock with no problems. The case makes the ipod just a bit bigger (about 1/16th inch on either side) and the modified sleeve allows for it to fit. Unfortunatly if you buy a non official ipod dock they dont use the same layout as the ipod univeral dock connector sleeves. I suppose Apple has this patented so companies cant make this feature avail in their docks. But WHY!?!?! WHY! I have no idea why.
I bought Jen a dock for her computer off ebay. its called the iDock or something like that. The box it came in look like it was from apple, they even made the packaging complicated like apple would. Jen has an Agent18 acrylic case for her iPod Nano too, it too came with a modified dock sleeve. We tried to put the dock sleeve into the space provided and it didnt fit. I even cut off some pieces to make it fit. It was never 100%. See, the faux iDock has its own “standard” of dock connector sleeves, theirs were more square and the apple one is a bit oval like. 2 grat concepts but non “universal” or ‘interchangeable”
Later I bought a dock for my 30gig iPod video, it too wasnt an Apple made device. Unlike the faux iDock I got Jen it didnt have the univeral sleeve setup. It had size and thats it. The Agent18 case i have doesnt fit a standard dock (thats why it came with its own universal sleeve). The dock I bought has a 10 card reader on it so I thought killing 2 birds with 1 stone would be cool. Since my iPod doesnt fit in it unless I take off the Agent18 case I thought about hacking it apart and making the walls of the dock where the ipod rests a bit wider.
Today I was reading the usual blogs I read and found this device called the Dock Extender. Someone had the same problem I have and figures out a way to solve it.
The Dock Extender goes between the ipod in its case and the dock. It allows for the ipod to be docked and it also comes with a metal back support so it wont over extend and break your dock or dock extender.
The device isnt for sell yet and its maker looks to be in Europe. Hopefully some one out in the States will pickup this product.
http://www.sendstation.com/us/products/dockextender/
Since this product is most likely the same price that I spent on the dock, I may just get my hack on and dremel it to fit. I still wouldnt mind reviewing this unit for EverythingTech.tv.