If you MUST buy a speaker dock...

This is the one we keep telling you people to buy. Yes, it’s a speaker dock, which means it’s at best a quaint relic, at worst a wretched echo of the dark ages B.B. (Before Bluetooth) when you had to nail your phone down to listen to music with it. But it’s the best of the speaker docks we have to offer. Now, yeah, that’s like being the best-smelling Visigoth. If you have to share a chariot with one of them, that’s still the one you’d pick.

Here’s why, Daring Fireball fans, the JBL OnBeat Mini is the only speaker dock we can even come faintly close to recommending you add to your array of iCcessories. It’s bigger than its, um, smaller cousin, the JBL OnBeat Micro. So it’s iPad-sized while still being better to use with your iPhone. Because it sounds way better. We’d even go so far as to say it’s a decent portable speaker, with its built-in rechargeable battery.

None of that seems to matter to the usual rabble who loiter around here. They’d rather save a couple of dimes and settle for the crappier, tinnier Micro. But we’re hoping that any crowd that recognizes the keen analytical brilliance and primal erotic musk of John Gruber will have a thing or two going on in the Pick The Right Goddamn Speaker Dock department.

Could you lead a rich, full life without the JBL OnBeat Mini? Yes, just like you could lead a rich, full life without a large wart on your forehead, or a bedbug infestation. Let’s just say these speaker dock sales aren’t the days when we call our kinfolk to gather 'round the laptop with their credit cards. But if you must buy a speaker dock, if you must ride shotgun with a barbarian or share your boudoir with parasites, open up and say “JBL OnBeat Mini.”