iHome iP71 for iPhone and iPod

Where has this product been for the last six years? Ever since Apple launched the third-generation iPod with a bottom dock connector port six years ago, users have been able to purchase dockable speaker systems but have been faced with the perplexing if not quite nightmarish quandary: do I want to buy dockable speakers so I can play music directly from my iPod, or do I want to buy computer speakers and play my music from iTunes instead? And while some dockable iPod and iPhone speaker systems of the years have included a line-in port which technically allowed them to be connected to a computer, most of those systems have been designed in a way that made the whole thing awkward looking and oddly out of place.



But here comes iHome’s iP71, a speaker system whose shape and industrial design suggest that they’re the natural born soulmate of Apple’s Aluminum iMac and MacBook line, or a similarly themed PC. The pair of speakers sit on opposite sides of your computer, much like any other computer system, but with a single fundamental difference: the left speaker includes a built-in dock for iPhone or iPod. In other words, this gives you, hypothetically at least, the best of both worlds: you can, without having to change anything around at all, play music through the speakers from either your docked iPhone/iPod or iTunes on your computer – or for that matter, any and all other audio coming from your computer.



What if you’ve got audio coming from both sources at the same time? You hear them both. This is just the way you want it, as you might be listening to music from your iPhone but also want to hear any alert sounds from your computer. Syncing your iPhone or iPod with your computer while it’s docked is accomplished by connecting the iP71 to your computer with not one but two cables: an audio cable and a USB cable, the latter of which allows you to sync while docked. But while docking is generally something that happens automatically when you dock your iPhone or iPod, with the iP71 it’s manually triggered by a small button on the top of the left speaker.



This initially seemed odd at best, but I’ve actually come to prefer it to auto-sync; my computer often wants to install app updates on my iPhone, or go through a long backup process, and so syncing has become a much longer process than back in the old days where “syncing” simply meant a few songs. But these days there are plenty of times where I just want to dock my iPhone into the speaker system and play some music without first having to wait for a several-minute sync process to take place before I regain access to my iPhone’s music controls, and the iP71 allows just that.



My issues with the iP71 are actually of a more basic variety: they’re $129 speakers that don’t sound quite as good as, for instance, JBL’s $99 Duet II speakers, and yet thanks the their slanted design the iP71 take up a much larger footprint on my desk. And while the iP71 does come with an full featured remote, it’s not enough to overcome the fact that the audio quality doesn’t quite measure up. Except that in my case it apparently is enough, as the iP71 speakers still haven’t left my desk even after I finished my testing – and despite the fact that I have a number of better-sounding speaker systems sitting around the office, the convenience of being able to play my music out of either my iPhone or my computer with no toggling needed. The iP71 doesn’t sound bad by any measure, it just doesn’t measure up to the best comparably priced sized speakers. But as a laptop user whose built-in speakers are unacceptable for music playback, I’ve grown tired of having two different speaker systems on my desk – and the iP71 is simply too convenient of a solution to pass up.



This product may not make sense to users who only ever plays music through speakers via their iPhone/iPod OR their computer. And like all combo products, you’re going to pay a little more for the flexibility that comes with it than if you were to simply purchase comparable computer-specific speakers and an iPhone/iPod dock separately. But if the iP71 sounds like a product you never knew you always wanted, don’t let my mere four star rating stop you; it hasn’t stopped me.