iPhone 4 accessories tax

By Anthony Caruana
Saturday, 31 July 2010 16:57

Your IT - Mobility

Hands up if you have purchased or are about to purchase an iPhone 4. If you are, make sure you don’t completely empty the piggy bank as some of your favourite accessories might need to be replaced or updated.

A lot of ink and pixels have been spilled discussing the iPhone 4. There’s Antennagate, the queues at the stores and the iOS calendar bug. But very little has been said about iPhone accessories. It seems that if you invested in 3G and 3GS accessories like docks, speakers and cases that you’ll need to buy a bunch of new gear.

We can understand the issue with cases and suggest that it’s fair enough. The iPhone 4 does have a significantly different profile so a new case design is required. Besides, 3G and 3GS customers are likely to have a case that’s already seen some action so a replacement it isn’t unreasonable to assume that many buyers will want a new one.

I’m somewhat grumpier about docks. The iPhone 4 doesn’t fit into the same desktop dock as the 3G or 3GS. Effectively, a $39 accessory has to be replaced for another $39 accessory because of some minor moulding differences. I suspect that more than one iPhone owner will be taking a Dremel tool to their dock. However, the new iPhone 4 dock is reminiscent of the older design that could use the Dock Adaptors. The new dock includes an audio line out port that connects to powered speakers and it supports accessories such as the Apple AV cable.

The bigger issue will come from speaker docks. However, that can be overcome with a $12 Universal Dock Adaptor. It’s not a large cost but it would be nice if Apple included it in the box with the iPhone. The actual manufacturing cost is likely to only be a few cents to Apple and it would save many buyers a second trip to the Apple store.

It would be easy to moan, and I suppose this column is a bit of a whinge - two docks and some accessories will do that, but the reality is that many iPhone buyers will need to set a bucks aside to either replace accessories or buy a few Universal Dock Adaptors.