If you have an iPhone 3g, 2nd gen iPod touch or 4th gen iPod nano, you may have noticed an issue with plugging them into your older speaker system. As I understand it, the newest crop of iPhones and iPods no longer allow charging over the Firewire pin in the standard 30 pin iPod connector found on hundreds of iPod accessories out there. They now only charge via the USB powered pin in the same 30 pin connector.
I first noticed this problem with my iPhone 3g. I noticed it didn’t work with the integrated iPod connection in my car. I could plug it in and play music through the car’s speakers, but the iPhone wouldn’t charge. Buy a new car? Not today! Some car manufacturers started offering a newer cable to correct the problem. Rather than wait for a new cable to be produced for my car, I was lucky to find out about the passPORT by Scosche.
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passPORT to the rescue
The passPORT is an adapter that goes between your car’s cable and your iPhone/iPod. Since older iPods and iPhones can be charged over USB too, this adapter is backwards compatible. There’s really not much more to say about it. You plug it in and it works. Your iPhone 3g and newer iPods will now charge via your older cable. The adapter goes for $29.99. Amazon has it for $27.99. The price seems a little high, but it’s a lot cheaper than a new car 🙂
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What about your speaker system?
If you spent good money for an iPod speaker system, then chances are you want to keep using it. However, if you bought your speaker system a while back, then you may be facing the same issue I did above. Your older speaker system may not charge or work properly with your newer iPhone 3g or iPod. While I was at Macworld Expo, I stopped by the Scosche booth while I was at Macworld Expo to buy a second passPORT for my new EOS Wireless Speaker system (a review on that is coming). Although this speaker system is not that old, it’s old enough not to work properly with the new iPhone 3g or iPods. When I got to the Scosche booth I saw a display on the wall for their new passPORT Dock product.
This adapter is designed specifically for the Universal Dock connector found in most speaker systems. As a matter of fact even Apple’s own (now discontinued) Apple iPod Hi-Fi system. When this system was being sold it retailed for $399. If you spent $400 on an iPod Hi-Fi, then you probably want to keep using it with your new iPod or iPhone 3g. Same goes for the original Bose SoundDock ($299).Â
The passPORT Dock is a $40 adapter that sits right in your speaker’s universal dock connector. It sits up about an inch and has it’s own Universal Dock on top which will accept the standard Apple dock inserts that ship with the various iPods and are available for the iPhone. The passPORT dock comes in either white or black to match your speaker system. Again, I think $40 is a little pricey, but considering what you may have spent for your speaker system $40 is not much to keep using it with your newer iPhone/iPod.
You can order the passPORT Dock directly from their site.
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Went to online order the passPORT dock for my Bose system.
Yikes! Ground Shipping is $9.00 for a $40 purchase.
Ray
This product sounds interesting. One thing though. Another problem with the old connectors is not only does it not charge but it does not allow calls through. Does this device charge and allow calls?
Terry –
I couldn’t thank you enough for this post – I was freaking out trying to figure what was wrong – checking fuses in my car, in my charger and all that.
I don’t use an integrated cord in my car (I drive a banged up whip) – but I noticed that suddenly my phone wouldn’t charge when I used the cigarette lighter type charger, even though it had previously been working. I wonder if it was one of the updates to the iphone software that effected this.
My question is — will this solution work for me, even though I’m using that kind of charger? At that price – wouldn’t it make more sense to just get another charger – one that uses a usb cord that plugs into the charger? Do you recommend any certain type?
The fact that it was working, and then suddenly stopped it truley annoying, but I couldnt be more excited that someone finally had an idea to why it was happening – your blog saved my day!
Thanks again, looking forward to the next post!
John,
You could get another charger for less than the cost of this adapter. That would be the way to go!
I stumbled across this adapter the other week, i thought it would solve all my problems, i could finally use my iphone 3g in the car without it flattening the battery!
I have a connects2 FM-RDS wired modulator in my car, it works fine with my iphone 3G except it wouldnt charge until i discovered the passPORT.
Unfortunately, it would appear the passPORT is not fully compatable with my connects2 FM-RDS, when connected my iphone 3G now charged!!! Woohoo, but… the whole ipod audio passthrough does not function at all.
So now i can either charge or play but not at the same time, real shame 🙁
I have heard that the passPORT is compatible with other FM modulators like the DICE FM or the Dension Link ONE
I spoke directly with Scosche who were very helpful, but appologised and confirmed that the passPORT was not compatible with my FM modulator.
Thanks, Terry, for the info on the passPort. I ordered it on the 14th from Amazon for 24.99. Even with Standard shipping, it arrived on my doorstep yesterday! It works with my “old” car cable perfectly. Both the audio and charging work great. I agree that the passPOrt dock is a bit pricey. I will wait awhile to see if the price comes down. Thanks again for the heads up.
Hey Terry, thanks for posting this, When i bought my iPhone 3G back in July, I soon after that spent a couple hundred hard earned dollars to add the abiity to play it with my car stereo only to find out that it didn’t charge it.
This is a awesome addiction to my car, sure it would have been nice to only pay $15 or so, but the extra money was worth it to now be able to go for long trips with the iphone charging and listening to music or maybe talking the entire time 🙂
Terry
I have a car audio system that has an output plugged directly into the back of my aftermarket deck. It works perfectly with my ipod to charge and play music through my car stereo. I recently got the iphone 3gs and the passPORT charge converter. Using the converter, the output does charge my iphone, however it will not play the music through my stereo like it does with my original ipod. Do you know how to fix this?
@Jason Kanel
I have the same issue. My Passport converter charges my 3GS, but no audio through the car speaker!? Anybody know a cheap solution?
Hello Terry,
Thanks for the details on why my old iPod Hi-Fi does not charge my new iPod. I should buy the replacement dock in order to preserve my investment.
Regards,
Sergio Sousa