Review: iHome iP88

review by Bill Palmer

Dual-device chargers for iPhone and iPod have become increasingly commonplace over the past year. But until now, the idea of a dual dock on a stereo system had gone untried, presumably if for no other reason than the potential complication involved in using one set of playback controls to manage two devices. iHome’s new iP88 alarm clock, then, comes as a potential boon for those couples who each want to wake to their own music from their own device at different times of the morning, as well as for individual users who have an iPhone and an iPod and simply want to keep both of them fully charged and immediately playable.



This isn’t the first time iHome has offered a $149 “premium” version of their standard (and best on the market) $99 alarm clock, which in its current iteration is known as the iP9. Last year the company sent me the iP99, priced at $149, which sounded a little better, looked a bit sleeker, and squeezed in a few extra features, none of which justified the extra fifty dollars and ultimately left the iP99 which a lower comparative star rating than the cheaper iP9. But this time around, the iP88 is immediately identifiable as being a potentially fifty-dollar-superior product based on the dual dock, based on the dual dock alone, at least for those users who can put such a feature to good use.



I’ll say this about the styling of the iP88: it is what it is. What it looks like in the picture is what it looks like in real life. It’s boxier than the iP9 or iP99, and is in fact a perfect rectangular solid, with the exception of the front grille angling forward toward the center clock – and even it has defined lines. Some users will see the iP88’s squareness as a sign of refinement, while others will see it as just plain square. It strikes me as being more of an individual matter of preference than anything else. The brushed grey metal of the top and sides does match the look and feel of iTunes itself. Then again, there’s no black, blue, pink or purple option here as there is with the iP9.



But you’re going to buy the iP88 for the two docks, not for the styling, as the only option for couples up to this point would have been to buy a pair of iP9 units for a total of $198, as opposed to a single $149 iP88 unit. And what I found while testing out the iP88 with both an iPhone and and iPod nano docked simultaneously is that, for the most part, iHome has managed to pull it off without creating the kind of interface confusion that I thought would be automatic with a product like this. The remote is perhaps the more flawlessly implemented interface, as a pair of buttons near the top allow you to toggle between controlling Dock 1 or Dock 2, much like the buttons on a TV remote control allow you to toggle between your TV, VCR, and cable box. Fortunately, the iP88’s remote is nowhere near as impenetrable as the typical cable box remote, as the company has essentially only had to add one button in order to offer full control of both devices.



Surprisingly, the on-board playback controls are a bit more of a challenge. Left and right play/pause buttons appear to be each encircled in their own volume wheel. But as it turns out, the left wheel controls the volume of whichever device is currently playing, while the right wheel is for setting the alarm. This leads to the awkward scenario of hitting the play button for the unit that’s in Dock 2, then instinctively spinning the wheel surrounding that button in an attempt to adjust the volume, and only then remembering that the volume wheel is on the other side. Much as I tried, this is simply not something I could get used to while I was testing the unit.

That having been said, it’s a comparatively minor complaint, particularly in comparison to what I might have feared going in. The dual alarms work exactly like one would hope, so the bit of confusion only really applies when you’re listening to your music later in the day and two devices happen to be docked simultaneously. In that sense, it’s more of a concern for an individual user who routinely keeps two devices docked (for instance, a stuffed-to-the-gills iPhone along with an iPod classic that holds the rest of the user’s music library) and wants to be able to play music from one or the other; couples are less likely to both have their device docked at the same time, unless it’s close to bedtime.



In all, the dual dock implementation on the iP88 is better than what I was even hoping for. Perhaps I was being too skeptical going in; then again, it’s not as if this has even been attempted up to this point, so it would seem that the industry has been as skeptical as I have. That having been said, now that iHome has shown that it can be done, and done very well (if not quite perfectly), perhaps others will now follow.



As to the iP88’s other premium features, the story here is similar to what it was with last year’s premium model, the iP99. The audio sounds perhaps twenty dollars better, to put it into buying terms. And the LCD can be more finely tuned, with eight dimmer settings instead of the usual three or four. You can set three different alarms (assignable to any combination of docked devices, radio, and/or buzzer). And the day and date display on the clock face. But the real difference here is that the iP88 actually offers a feature worth paying the fifty dollar price premium, in the form of the dual dock.



And of course the iP88 includes all of the features that make the standard $99 iP9 such a great product in the first place, including the gradual wake, the full iPhone/iPod menu control built into the remote, the built-in AM/FM radio, the ability to set the alarm differently for the weekend, the EQ and spatializer settings, and everything else that’s right about the iHome alarm clock line. The iP9 is still your best bet if you only plan to dock one device at a time, as the rest of the iP88’s features don’t add up to make the price premium worth it. But if you’re going to put the two docks to good use, particularly if you had otherwise been considering buying a pair of iP9’s, then the iP88 suddenly becomes the product you never knew you always wanted, and a great value.



I can’t give the iP88 five stars for the simple reason that the dual playback controls aren’t quite perfect and need one more round of refinement to reach the perfection that I expect iHome will achieve on their next attempt at a dual dock alarm. That having been said, if you’ve ever looked at an iPod/iPhone alarm clock and thought that it would be perfect for you if only it worked with two iPods and/or iPhones, then the iP88 is your winner.

Learn more about the iP88 at iHomeAudio.com.