Let the hive mind of Engadget get that for you.
"I own an iPhone 3G and I'm looking for a decent speaker / alarm clock for it. I am going to listen music in a mid-sized room, so I want nice quality speakers with solid bass. I also want to use it as an alarm clock, so it would be great if there is such a feature. The price can be low-mid to mid-high range. I was looking at the Klipsch iGroove SXT; it's powerful, slick and the reviews are good, but it doesn't have an alarm clock feature. It's no deal breaker if I can set it up from the iPhone, but I'm not sure. Thanks!"
Around the time of MacWorld 2008, I heard that a company named FastMac was going to be selling an external battery for the iPhone. Since most afternoons I found my iPhone battery dropping below 20%, this sounded like the perfect solution for me.
After visiting the FastMac site and reading “FastMac gives you more power for less money than any other company. And we stand behind our products 100%. With our one to three year warranties and our excellent customer support, we're committed to giving you the best value and service you can’t find anywhere else.” On the strength of that statement, on 12 February I placed my order for a $79.95 iV Battery Charger for iPhone ($94.30 with tax & shipping).
On 13 February my order status changed from new to processing and on 3 March the status changed to backordered. Later in March, I spoke to a FastMac representative on the phone who explained that they were having quality problems with the product and a redesign for compatibility with the 3G phone, but expected these issues to be resolved shortly.
On 1 April I received an email that said Pre-orders will begin shipping in mid May. Then on 7 May I received an email that said It looks like the IV will be shipping by the end of the month. I'm very sorry for the inconvenience.
May and June came and went with no further contact from FastMac so I revisited the FastMac web site which now said Pre-order now! Shipping in limited quantities on June 10, in volume by July 10 Note: Our 1st run is sold out, additional units are expected by July 10th. Hmm. That seemed suspicious. Were there really that many people that placed orders before me?
On July 14th I received an email that said Your IV will be shipping in approx. 10 days. Please contact me if you have further questions. Then on July 18th I received another email that said Your FastMac TruePower iV iPhone battery backup will ship out within one week - that is just seven days. Within that time, please look in your email for a shipping confirmation and we went ahead and upgraded your shipping to priority!
Well I never received a shipping confirmation, but on 22 July I noted that my credit card was billed. I considered that a good sign. Certainly a company like FastMac wouldn’t bill the credit card company for merchandise they hadn’t shipped, or would they?
On 26 July I tried calling the FastMac customer support number but it was a Saturday and there was no answer. I then tried sending an email to three email addresses I had for FastMac contacts, and all three messages bounced back.
On Monday, 28 July at 10 AM I spoke on the phone to a FastMac representative who said Oh yes, we have the batteries in hand, are in the process of boxing them up and they should go out no later than Thursday
By now I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but come Friday 1 August I still had heard nothing so at 9:52 AM I sent FastMac a message simply stating Please advise order status and provide tracking number At 12:39 I received a reply from FastMac stating We are in the process of shipping units out. I was not able to find your invoice to provide you with details. Do you have the invoice number? The f…ing subject line of the email included the invoice number, but I replied anyway with the order number, billing date and every other detail I thought they might need. This was the last time I heard from FastMac.
By comparison, I found an iPhone battery at www.richardsolo.com, placed my order on 30 July, it was shipped on 31 July and delivered to my home on 2 August.