The problem with iPhone docks.

by WyldKard on December 15, 2011

Recently, John Gruber linked to a new Kickstarter campaign for a fairly nice dock, called the Elevation Dock. As Gruber notes, it’s certainly a beautiful dock, but we question how useful it is. Particularly, in regards to FaceTime:

The dock’s acoustics make the iPhone sound great and less tinny than when laid on a desk, so speakerphone and FaceTime calls sound better. And its angled back 8 degrees, so you are perfectly in frame of the video.

Here’s the problem the Elevate, and most every other dock out there, have: they keep the iPhone in portrait mode. That’s fine for some features, but it’s horrible for FaceTime, which just looks so much better in landscape mode. We’ll admit that we’re starting to use our iPad in portrait mode a lot more often than in the past, but even for FaceTime, we set our iPad up in landscape mode because we prefer to see video maximized.


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