Others say...

"Will not display playlists on screen"
So you want to hook your ipod to your home stereo system and see your playlists on screen? Forget it! There is no fuctionality to do this with the universal dock. I had to get to tier 2 support to get this answer, tier 1 apple support says you can.

The remote has a menu button that does nothing with your ipod... what??? come on apple! The onkyo dock (and others) has a functioning menu button at least.

It is hard to believe this product came from apple. Shame on you apple :(

"DO NOT BUY Universal Dock "
Just got my 2nd one; still does not charge my Classic 160GB. Back to the circus of returning this turkey to Apple for the 2nd time. Forget it!

"Does its job well!"
I was looking for a Dock that would work with my Iphone 3G , U2 Ipod, and Ipod Classic connected to my home stereo receiver. This little dock fit the bill perfectly. It only includes the an Apple Remote, the Dock and 5 dock inserts (no insert for the ipod 3G). I will have to buy a 3G dock insert sometime in the future if I want to use it, but for now my Ipod Classic will live in the dock. Yes, the dock does not come with any cables, but buy an inexpensive 3.5mm to RCA cable and you are ready to roll. The remote seems to bounce off my white wall and adjusts the volume and previous/next track from all angles. I know a lot of people have given it low reviews but it works great for me.

"Garbage"
Not worth the plastic it's molded out of. This won't work unless you spend ANOTHER $50 on a component cable, available ONLY from APPLE. And no, no other cable will work, since the connection in the dock is proprietary. The cable, of course, is otherwise just a component cable identical to the ones they sell for $1 at radio shack.

This is a waste of money. Don't buy it unless you want an ugly piece of $50 plastic. It's not good for anything else.

"Not compatible with 3rd Generation iPod!"
There are a lot of negative reviews, but it did seem as if the product would control basic playback, so I thought I'd try it. Bad choice!

I have an old 3rd generation iPod, and all I wanted was a base with a remote, recharge, and audio connect to my stereo - I want to dedicate my old iPod to the stereo now. The Apple specs claim that this product is compatible with 3rd generation, and you can even order a base plate of the right size. This base simply is NOT compatible. Why? The 3rd generation iPods only recharge from a Firewire charger, and the Universal Dock does not pass that voltage through - thus you can't recharge your iPod while in the dock. I would not call this compatibility. I found similar issues with 4th generation, too - not all USB chargers would work, although some would pass through the charge voltage. If there is some reason to not pass the Firewire 12 volt signal - then there should be a switch on the bottom that would allow that signal to be passed from the input to the dock connector. Then this might be a universal dock. Now it is only for new iPods.

I never tried the remote - what's the point. The old battery wouldn't provide much play time, so why bother.

So I think I'll try the iJet RF Remote Control for iPod with Dock Connector which supposedly passes through the signals from the dock - I still have my original dock (which doesn't have remote capabilities, but will connect to the stereo and Firewire charger.)