Electronics : Apple Universal Dock

Rating: - Very disappointing...
This is almost a waste of money. I bought this to control video use remotely, but there are a few major tasks you can't do remotely. You can't select between music and video, you can't move through the menus and you can't start a video with the remote control (pressing Play after manually selecting the video to watch causes the first song listed to start playing, and NOT start playing the selected video file).

The things you can do remotely for watching video, is: adjust the iPod volume up and down (your TV will do this with its own remote control), fast forward and reverse, pause/resume, stop, turn iPod on and off.

The remote control unit is a bit awkward to use - you often need to click 2 or 3 times to get it to work, so the range seems quite poor with this, and the end that makes contact with the palm of your hand is quite sharp and rough - so not very comfortable to use.

Inside the box there are several adapters for different iPods, but they are not marked (apart from a small number) which makes it difficult to know which adapter is for which iPod. The inside of the box and instruction booklet attempts to show which is which, but this is incomplete and leaves a certain amount of guesswork and trial and error. The instruction booklet is very vague on some of the usage details.

None of the cables that are needed to use this fully are included (no AV cable, no USB cable (but provided with an iPod), no power plug, and no audio-out cable). Also, the image currently being shown by Amazon for this is inaccurate. The photo shows what looks like an S-Video type connector - this is NOT included on Apple's Universal Dock.

I don't have a problem with the fact there are no cables included - I knew this before buying - but the fact that some of the most basic remote control uses don't exist with this, which ruins the entire product.

Apple should have done much better with this, and had I have known its limitations, I would not have wasted my money buying one.

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Rating: - It's not what you expect...
I understood the dock+remote would allow me to connect my iPod to the audio/video inputs of my equipment and control my iPod remotely. Well, it depends on what you consider "control the iPod remotely" to be. It does allow me to play/pause/skip, but it doesn't allow me to navigate the iPod menu. So, if you want to browse your songs/videos/photos, or if you want to switch from watching a video to listen a song, you need to reach for your iPod and use it. That restricts *a lot* the usefulness of the remote. (I don't understand how the other 2 reviews could be positive at all...)

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Rating: - Top item
Works exactly as expected, allows you to hook up your itouch, iPhone etc to your stereo, control it with the remote and charge at the same time.

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Rating: - The perfect accompanyment to the Apple Component AV-Cable
I recently purchased myself a set of official Apple Component AV-Cable leads so I could store and watch videos on my iPod for when I went on holiday or stayed at a hotel ect.

I have owned my iPod Component AV-Cables for a few weeks now and would have to recommend them hands down to absolutely anyone who is looking for a perfect solution to watching movies on the go. The picture quality is great on dvd's converted from disc so long as you have decent software and most movies take up no more than 1gb (2gb max) The only thing which is a bit of pain in the butt is having to use the iPod to use functions such as fast forward, rewind play ect because the AV-Cable isn't ideally as long as it could be, also the controls for fast forward and rewind can be fiddly on the iPod and if you accidently press too hard, it goes right back to the start of the film which is extremely anoying.

After looking on Apple's website, it was relief to find that Apple actually made a docking station which comes complete with a quite cool little remote.

Basically the Apple Universal Dock is a docking station which you can place any iPod model into whilst charging, transfaring files and watching videos with your iPod.

The unit has a connector input at the back of the unit which you can slot your USB, Component or Composite AV-Cable into.

Personally I ordered this product mainly for the purpose of being able to control video play of movies on my iPod via the remote, but it can also be use for listing to music whilst connected to your stereo, interacting with Apple TV and much more.

I would definitely recommend this little unit if you can find it cheap enough, I picked mine up from a Amazon Market Seller for just £15 which is a bargian