Originally Posted By: Dignan
My wife's case came with an insert for the universal dock. Of course, here's where I also complain that Apple's universal dock is WAY too expensive. I think the official one was something like $65.

Looks like they are $59 now, and include a remote and cable along with assorted inserts (normally $9 for 3). I want to say back when I bought mine, they were $49 (so $5 more then the Nexus One dock), and didn't include the cable. They keep changing the dock packages, so it's hard to keep track.

Originally Posted By: Dignan
But the issue is that I don't want my phone to dock like the iPhone docks. With my N1, docking doesn't mean plugging anything in, I just place the phone on the dock and the contacts at the bottom meet. It's like it's just shy of inductive charging. It's nice to be able to just grab my phone off the dock - it's kind of hard to explain.

Yeah, I understand the slight difference, though for the iPhone with the dock is nearly the same effort to slide it in as the Nexus One dock. I'm able to just drop the phone into the phone sized slot, and contact is made. The 30 pin connector in the dock doesn't have the latches on the side like the cables do, so the phone connects and separates pretty easily.

The Palm III and V were slightly different then both the Nexus One and iPhone. There wasn't a full plug, nor contact points on the bottom. Instead contact points were on the back side of the device at the bottom. The III had a piece on the dock that opened the cover over the pins, the Palm V just went with exposed pins.

Dock feature wise, the Palms and iPaq passed through both power and serial/USB for syncing. Looks like the Nexus One just charges in the dock, and will send bluetooth audio to the dock for output off the back audio plug. I guess that explains the $45 price of it, with a bluetooth receiver sitting inside.

The iPhone dock passes the full 30 pin connector through, so it can go to a computer for syncing/tethering, or out to composite/component/VGA/HDMI video. I've made use of the video out several times at hotels, along with the remote (the dock has an IR sensor). The only thing I wish it did was also present a TV interface when docked for selecting other media. I could play/pause/rewind/fast forward, but not change what was playing without getting up to go to the phone. Apple should merge in some of the AppleTV interface pieces now that it also run iOS.