Griffin’s PartyDock – A Game Accessory for iPad and iPhone
By 
A week ago, I witnessed something a bit interesting at a party. There were 7 people with a mix of iPhones and iPads. Besides them showing off their precious gadgets, some of them were playing a few games amongst themselves.
After that event, I was wondering if Apple or anyone else would come out with a gaming accessory that would allow people to hook up the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch to a TV to play multi-player games. With all the recent rumors about the upcoming iTV, many have been hoping for Apple to announce the new iOS-driven iTV with support for gaming amongst many other things.
But, it seems that Griffin is the one looking to make the multi-player gaming experience attractive for all iOS devices, at least for now. We stumbled upon the upcoming Griffin PartyDock. The product is not released yet and Griffin has been quiet about pricing and availability dates.
Based on what we’ve heard, the upcoming PartyDock will be a game and media dock with a connector for the iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch. It also has four wireless controllers for interacting with four-player games. According to Griffin, you will be able to display the games to your TV over composite and component connections.
The PartyDock can also send other media to your TV. According to Griffin, the PartyDock will be great for those users that like photo slide-shows, YouTube, or listening to their hottest music collection. Given that the PartyDock has four wireless controls, we have to assume Griffin wants to bring a party media experience for folks at home, and in the process bring an alternate solution to those that don’t have an Xbox, Wii, Google TV or any other gaming and media platform.
However, there is catch. Don’t expect the PartyDock to work with every game on the App Store. It will only work with select Griffin games. Griffin has a few four-player games that will be released with the accessory. But, we haven’t heard any details about these games yet.
Griffin’s idea seems very interesting and could be attractive for many. But, here is one detail that must not be overlooked. If Griffin does not open the PartyDock to application developers and other third parties, then it will be difficult for them to impress everyone and compete with upcoming formidable competitors like Apple’s iTV. We’ll have to see if the iTV becomes a reality. Let’s see how this story evolves in the coming weeks.
