That Was Then... Apple iPod Hi-Fi review

"It's taken a while". We could just as easily be talking about Apple's recently announced, clunkily named and late-to-the-party HomePod smart speaker, but back in May 2006 those were the first words of our iPod Hi-Fi review. And, in all honesty, it didn't get much more positive.

The iPod Hi-Fi featured a 30-pin dock for your state-of-the-art 30GB iPod, could be powered by mains or batteries (adding to the iPod Hi-Fi's already significant 7kg kerb-weight), and came complete with digital optical and analogue outputs, plus a remote control. And it went loud. Very, very loud indeed.

But "loud", as we observed at the time, "does not necessarily translate to good."

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And despite the tacit endorsement of the then-Prime Minister (the above photo appeared more than four years after our review, demonstrating the Camerons were determined to ignore expert opinion even back then), the iPod Hi-Fi went down as one of Apple's very rare failures. Virtually every 'Made for iPod' dock we tested at similar money outperformed it.

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Simon Lucas is a technology journalist, with a strong emphasis on the audio/video side of consumer electronics and home entertainment, and has been since 2003. He worked for more than 14 years at What Hi-Fi?, the last six of which were spent as the editor of the magazine and website. Since then he's written for Wired, The Guardian, TechRadar, Stuff, GQ and many more besides.

In the course of his career he's developed a pretty deep understanding of the way both the publishing and the electronics industries function, as well as the sort of intimate knowledge of audio products (both specific and general) that can make people very wary of him at parties.