There was once a time when it was normal for your pocketable gadget to come with a dock or cradle.  It was a sweet addition to the packaging and was not only very useful for charging and/or syncing your electronic toy, but provided a convenient to way to view your device alongside your monitor, or even by your bedside.  So it comes as a mystery to me why most phones no longer come with a handy dandy dock?

The likely cause of this slow extinction is probably due to manufacturers wanting to cut costs so they can gain higher profit margins.  Ok fine, maybe on the budget devices this makes sense, but for the power users a dock is a godsend.  Being able to just lock, drop, and dock it when you got home or to the office was the pimp thing to do.  Your phone had a home, you knew where it was, and it was always getting charged.

Now we are forced to fiddle with cables dangling on our desks or hanging from a power outlet on the wall – all nonchallant and messy.  Manufacturers are even starting to put the charging ports on the sides and tops of our phones – making it nearly impossible for 3rd-party manufacturers to build a dock should you want one.

In this fast paced race of new smartphones being released every few months, you would think that manufacturers would throw in a little extra to give their devices a bit of an edge in the competition.  Especially since all you would need for a simple dock is a piece of plastic with a micro-usb pass-through.  What are your thoughts on docks and cradles?  Is it an unnecessary waste of desk space – or a required utility to our smartphone way of life.