I thought I would write a little review for the iPod dock/alarm clock I got for Christmas, hope this helps!

The Goodmans GCR1872 iPod Dock Alarm clock is a small stylish device which which has 2 handy alarm timings, includes a FM radio and also Aux input and output.

The alarm clock function allows for 3 types – iPod (plays iPod), Buzzer and FM Radio and the display panel also includes many brightness levels.

The sound quality is pretty good considering it only has 2 x 3W small speakers.

While I liked the Goodmans GCR1872 iPod Dock Alarm Clock I recently had to return it because the iPod connector came away from the main circuit board.

A lot of the problem I found with this product us the iPod Tocuh (Gen 1) didn’t properly clip into the mount, so I either had to not use a mount of have the iPod Touch mount improperly fitted, which probably lead to extra strain on the dock connector.

Unfortunately because this cost me £39.99 and it broke in less than 2 months, I have to recommend you avoid this product as it seems like it is poorly built in places and is not long lasting with long term use… which is a shame for such a nice compact little gadget.

So for Christmas I got a nice little iPod dock/alarm clock, and ever since I got it I have wondered why what I would think should be fairly easy integration wasn’t done which would make using the dock much simpler.

Now the obvious integration features with iPod docks are obviously the play functions (play, pause, skip etc) but why stop there?

I was slightly puzzled why I would need to set a basic thing like the time on the dock when I am plugging a device which knows the time into it! Why couldn’t it sync the time with the iPod? Surely that should be a very simple function…

Of course this extends further to things like the alarms themselves, why couldn’t they be set to the iPod alarm times?

Of course I can understand that many of these functions might be different for each iPod dock… However one of the great things about the iPod (at least the iPod Touch and iPhone) is the Apple App Store; which leads me to wonder why there can’t simply be a nice little custom App which can interact with the dock and allow the user to set the functions and settings for the dock and alarms using the nice 3.5″ touch screen display instead of some fiddly archaic buttons?!

All of this seems like simple things which would make the end user experience for using Apple iPod/iPhones with docking devices much smoother and user-friendly.

Now as with all things I am more than happy for someone to correct me if I am wrong and to hear your thoughts… So what do you think? Why is Apple/dock manufacturers missing this potential?

Hmm okay, so i was saving up to get me an iPod Touch because they looked really cool and i liked the idea of having a nice handheld wifi device (i would use my twitter a lot more!) and I quite liked the idea of all the different apps, as well as having a better music player than my mobile. But now i am toren. I really want to get into doing YouTube and video, media and all that kind of stuff, at the moment the only kind of cam i have is the one built into my laptop, which when i first got it i thought yay great, but now i want something a little higher quality and would be much better to have something handheld as i could do a lot more different styles and shots etc with it.

So which is it? iPod Touch or HD video Camera?

HD Video CameraiPod Touch

iPod Touch

Gah its such a hard choice!!