AppleInsider Staff
Apple will include a standard iPhone dock alongside each iPhone purchase but will reportedly offer a second dock with added capabilities. Meanwhile, the company is expected take its online store offline for approximately three hours on Friday. And a new iPhone video tutorial has been posted to Apple's iPhone website.
It appears that Apple is planning to offer two distinct docking stations for iPhone when it goes on sale later this week, the first of which will be called "iPhone Dock" and come standard inside each iPhone box. Also inside the retail box will be the iPhone itself, a stereo headset, dock connector to USB cable, USB power adapter, documentation and cleaning/polishing cloth.
Meanwhile, a second iPhone dock — reportedly dubbed "Dual Dock" — will feature built-in charging stations for both the iPhone and Apple's $129 Bluetooth headset accessory. People familiar with current pricing data for the iPhone accessories claim the latter dock will fetch $49 as a standalone product. However, other reports indicate that the Dual Dock may be included with the purchase of the $129 Bluetooth headset.
It should be noted, however, that Apple has not released official pricing for any of its iPhone accessories. Pricing ($129 for the Bluetooth headset and $49 for the Dual Dock) could theoretically change ahead of Friday's launch, when the company is expected to provide more details on available iPhone add-ons.
iPhone features the same 30-pin dock connector as the iPod, so many properly designed iPod accessories should also work with the new Apple handset. However, Apple on its iPhone Q&A page warns that iPhone may cause audio interference with some iPod accessories. Products that are engineered and certified to be compatible with the iPhone will carry the "Works with iPhone" logo on their packaging, the company says.
"iPhone Dock" pictured on left, "Dual Dock" pictured on right.
Apple Store downtime
Meanwhile, people familiar with operations over at the Apple Store claim the online shop will be down for approximately three hours on Friday as the company prepares to accept online iPhone orders.
The store will be taken down around 3:00 p.m. Pacific time and will not resurface until approximately 6:00 p.m. Pacific time, those people say.
iPhone keyboard tutorial
Finally, Apple on Wednesday expanded its iPhone education tutorial by posting yet another video guide, this time demonstrating the device's virtual keyboard and smart correct typing software.
Malcolm Owen
William Gallagher
Charles Martin
Christine McKee
59 Comments
I hope that the new imac comes with a virtual keyboard option. So much easier to keep clean and I wouldn't make nearly the same number of errors.
I highly doubt Apple would charge you $130 for a bluetooth headset and NOT include a way to charge it, instead forcing you to spend another $50 for a charging dock.
Not their usual way of doing things, IMO.
I hope that the new imac comes with a virtual keyboard option. So much easier to keep clean and I wouldn't make nearly the same number of errors.
I guess that is out of the box thinking, but...
The only reason they use that virtual keyboard on the iPhone is because of space constraints. It appears to compare well with other smartphones because typing on their tiny little keyboards is dificult also. But when you have the space--i'm sorry, maybe you were joking.
Now, with the iTablet? Maybe...
I highly doubt Apple would charge you $130 for a bluetooth headset and NOT include a way to charge it, instead forcing you to spend another $50 for a charging dock.
Not their usual way of doing things, IMO.
Apple could easily just include a cable to charge the headset and then charge the $50 extra for the convenience of the dock. That's very much Apple's usual way of doing things.$130 does seem a bit steep for the headset itself, though. Sure, it's small, but it doesn't offer noise reduction like the Jawbone.
The store will be taken down around 3:00 p.m. Pacific time and will not resurface until approximately 6:00 p.m. Pacific time, those people say.
Wow, so no orders through Apple until 9:00 PM on the east coast? People will be pissing themselves wanting to order!