The article would have been approximately 88 times better if the writer had bothered to mention what the hell the Elevation Dock does, why anyone is interested in it at all, etc. As it is, it just leaves the reader saying 'what the hell does it DO? Are the people interested in it mad?'
I got 1 paragraph in, wondered what the dock actually does, quickly skimmed a few lines to see it it had decent pics or explanation, then looked for the link to Kickstarter and left the site.
Forgive me my sarcasm, but the posterboy of crowdfunding will be a piece of hardware that is designed for people who are too lazy to use two hands to undock their smartphone?
Like the computer is designed for people that are too lazy to do math? Or the car for people who are too lazy to walk? This is a perfect posterchild because no company, including apple would spend the time and resources to make the perfect dock. Kickstarter facilitated a non-obvious innovation that made it big. Clearly the need is there.
You don't even need 2 hands - just grab the phone with your thumb and 1 or 2 fingers, and use some other fingers to hold the dock down as you pull the phone off.
This doesn't break the trend of the most funded Kickstarter projects being accessories for Apple products.
Afaik, you don't have any legal obligation to deliver perks to people that fund your project. A decent scam would be to come up with a "dream" iAccesory that generates a lot of interest and pocket the money without going through the mess of actually manufacturing and shipping the product.
"If I am unable to complete my project as listed, what should I do?
If you are unable to fulfill the promises made to backers, cannot complete the project as advertised, or decide to abandon the project for any reason, you are expected to cancel funding. A failure to do so could result in damage to your reputation or even legal action on behalf of your backers."
So definitely it's possible that your backers could start a class action lawsuit and sue you because you took their money and didn't deliver a product, but this would require some organization on the backers' part, kickstarter wouldn't do this on their behalf.
No question this will happen. Kickstarter hasn't hit the mainstream yet. Once it does the scams will follow in force.
There was a story somewhere about how people don't do kidnappings anymore to get money. One of the reasons is the amount of security cameras out there another was the fact that with the Internet there were much safer and easier ways to make money illegally.
I'm really not big on accessories (I prefer universal/multifunction devices), but I have to say, this dock is pretty impressive (if it works as advertised).
Most docks are like 80% there, this dock's attention to detail brings it close to 100% (perfection), kind of like the MacBook Pro...
I love the idea and execution of Kickstarter, but I do find myself disappointed that much of its "funding" (at least the high profile stuff) is really just pre-ordering.
Although one can argue that is a benefit. You can 'guess' how many you might sell, this tells you how many you will sell. So its a win in that perspective. If you spent $75K tooling up to make this thing and only sold a hundred, well you'd be putting the rest up on Woot! or something. This takes the risk out of it.
Oh for sure it is better than the guesswork of the old way of market research and relying on unfavorable deals with investors, but when put in the same space as actual investments which entail a level of risk, I have to wonder if the pre-orders will siphon money off the "We need 50k to pay our bills while we do something cool for y'all" projects, which I think are also important. For now it's all relatively small so there probably isn't much cannibalization going on, but I see it as an inevitable concern.
I think that this pre-ordering is an exciting development. In terms of physical goods, it allows the creators to accurately gauge demand and prevent waste. In terms of digital goods, it allows creators to get paid for goods before they are released, which is an excellent adaption to the reality of piracy.
I always assumed the spec for dock manufacturers (and the dock connector pinout/protocol) was designed to support at least one generation of devices past and future. With some speaker docks costing hundreds of dollars, I sure hope that's the case.
It would be unwise for Apple to change the size of the iPhone. Not only because of all the practical problems with gadgets like these, but I also think they got it right the first time.
Specifically, I'm reminded of this post by Dustin Curtis:
http://dcurt.is/2011/10/03/3-point-5-inches/
The size of the iPhone is deliberately what it is because it is allows most people to operate the entire screen with only one hand.
This dock is gorgeous and innovative and I'm not even thinking about buying one.
I do love the easy 30 pin charging on the elevation dock but to me the killer feature of a charging dock is a simple landscape swivel (i.e. no engine).
I haven't seen one that does it right but all the talk about the Elevation Dock this morning got me looking though docks and this is about the closest I could find to what I'm looking for:
It's funny that the Apple dock has this problem, given that ye olde original Palm Pilot dock had a big chunk of steel in it just to avoid this very issue.
There's a good chance their time at the top will be short-lived. Double Fine just posted a proposal to fund an old school point-and-click adventure on Kickstarter.
My dock pissed me off so much I made a bracket and screwed it to the table. It seemed to be just tight enough so that I'd start picking it up and them it fall loose and smash back down, usually ending up on the floor.
I think there's going to be a revival of ordinary things that aren't cheap plastic from china. Its become a theme in my life.
More like anything related to iOS gets traction - I don't recall seeing a single Android-specific or even compatible project on Kickstarter, let alone the most successful ones. It helps if design-y people love your products/brand.
iOS devices present a (mostly) constant form factor, allowing a large addressable market with customers/funders who are willing to pay for quality. A rigorously-designed dock can address not only iPhones, but iPods as well.
That's the Apple platform strength - the weakness is changes are sometimes sudden and can eliminate or subsume 3rd party product markets entirely.
Of course nobody flings their phone around until the dock falls off, but until I watched that video I never realized that I do in fact always have to grab the dock with my off hand or push off with my fingers if I'm grabbing the phone with one hand. I'm not sure this annoys me so much, but there are clearly plenty of others who are annoyed themselves.
Nobody does it that way because you can't do it that way. I and most people I know either use two hands, or grab the phone while holding the dock in place with one finger.
This is an absolutely fantastic, thoughtful design.
