When I travel, I bring with me the USB Power Adapter and the Dock Connector to USB cable that came with my iPhone or iPad so that I can charge my iPhone overnight. It is usually easy to find an outlet on the wall of a hotel room, but you can't always find a table that is both near the plug and at the right height. Thus, I often have a cable running from the power adapter to the floor, and my iPhone just sits on the floor, which always makes me nervous that I might step on it at night. The clever folks at BlueLounge created a product called the MiniDock, a stand that plugs in to your Apple USB Power Adapter so that the iPhone can rest on the adapter itself without the need for a cord. A simple picture shows exactly what this product does:
Because the MiniDock is so tiny, it makes a great travel accessory. Indeed, if you carry a MiniDock, you might not even need to also travel with the Dock Connector to USB cable, although I'll probably continue to carry that cable because sometimes it is useful to have.
In addition to being useful during travel, this is a great device to use in the kitchen so that your iPhone can charge without being on the counter, which not only saves you counter space but also helps to protect the iPhone if you happen to spill something on the counter or push something else around that could knock the iPhone off of the counter.
The device works with a variety of different sized iPhones and iPods, and to allow all of these devices to rest comfortably in the MiniDock, it comes with three "Spacer Bumpers" of different sizes that stick onto the MiniDock to fill the gap between your device and the back panel of the MiniDock. With an iPhone 4 or 4S, I find that the largest bumper works best.
Note that, like most stands, the MiniDock probably won't work if your iPhone is in a case, unless it is a thin case with the right size opening around the connector on the bottom. Having said that, if your case is of the right size, it would not only work with the MiniDock but you also may not need to use a Spacer Bumper.
This device it so simple that there isn't much more to say about it, except that when I look at it it often makes me wonder why I didn't think of it first. The MiniDock works great, and I suspect that almost every iPhone owner would find this device useful.
Click here to get the MiniDock by BlueLounge on Amazon ($18.99).