Sync an iPad & iPhone with a Single Cable

The more iOS devices you get, the more sync and charger cables you have laying around, and the more you feel the pinch of only having so many USB ports. If you want to sync your iPad, you have to unplug your iPhone, if you want to sync your iPhone, you have to unplug your iPod touch, and so on. To ease this annoyance, there’s a few dual-link USB cables on the market now that let you sync multiple iOS devices at once (and some will dual charge, apparently). Here are two on Amazon:

• duaLink Dual Sync/Charge Cable for iPod and iPhone – $25.95
• XTG Dual iPhone / iPod Splitter Cable for $6.69

Two items with two price differences, you’ll have to be the judge here because I haven’t tried either of these yet but they definitely look useful if you’re juggling a handful of iPods and iPhones with only two USB ports.
The problem with some of the cables, as LifeHacker notes, is that some of the split cables will sync an iPad but not charge it due to the iPads increased power demands. I say some because if you read the product reviews on Amazon though, you’ll see that some users note that it does charge the iPad, and some say it doesn’t. It seems like this is due to only one side of the cable actually passing enough power to charge the device. Expect your mileage to vary, but if you don’t mind only charging one device at a time while syncing both, this could be a solution for you.