The $249 Bose SoundDock Series III Is Ready For Your iPhone 5

My fellow iPhone 5 owners, our long national nightmare is over. Bose finally has a speaker dock with a Lightning connector. Called the SoundDock Series III, it’s only $249.95.

No more Airplay for music! No more dock connector to lightning adapter! We can finally dock our phones like we used to until Apple decided to screw everything up.

As denoted by the III in the name, the SoundDock Series III speaker dock is the third incarnation in the SoundDock line. This version looks a lot like the predecessors save the small Lightning connector instead of a Dock Connector. It ships with a remote and features a 3.5mm input on the backside. It does not have Airplay. It’s probably save to assume this speaker has the same acoustics as the old one (read: above standard but nothing exceptional).

details3The Bose SoundDock was one of the first popular speaker dock solutions. It was released way back in 2004 just prior to the iPod’s explosion. The first generation even used Firewire to charge the connected iPod. But alas, the first model wasn’t designed to be used with a cellular device, and the GSM radio inside the iPhone caused major distortion issues. Now, on the third generation, Bose is making the product current with the latest device interface.

After a slow start, the market is starting to see several Lightning accessories. Harman released JBL speaker docks a few weeks back. Griffin is now selling all sorts of Lightning cables. And Kickstarter is awash with docks. Expect more by the year’s end.