The XM Radio Skydock for the iPhone is now available for a purchase price of $120.  The dock allows you to insert your iPhone and obtain the XM’s satellite signal via a magnetic antenna that must be mounted on the roof of your car and snaked through to connect to the dock.

Once docked, in addition to being charged, your iPhone gives way to touch controls and a built in FM transmitter for getting the radio’s audio over your car’s stereo.

You’ll also need the special version of the free XM Radio iPhone application from the App Store, and of course a subscription to the service.

The Skydock is available at various online retailers and in brick and mortar stores such as Best Buy, Radio Shack and Apple.

Via Engadget.

Listening to satellite radio is great provided you’re near an antenna. Sure, earlier this year Sirius tried to push out an iPhone application that used wireless to stream their content. And the iPhone application would probably be fine for most people except that certain major segments of programming (like MLB® Play-by-Play, NFL Play-by-Play, SIRIUS NASCAR® Radio, and Howard Stern) were painfully missing from the lineup due to contractual SNAFUS. Here’s a chance to score a Stiletto 2 plus a home kit for only $19 (formerly $219). This is a refurbished item with a 90 day warranty. This portable Stiletto can record up to 100 hours of programming for later playback or use the built-in antenna anywhere you can get a line of sight to the sky and listen live. The purchase requires a Sirius subscription. A hot deal for anyone needing the full lineup os Sirius on an affordable player. PS – When you subscribe to Sirius use a disposable credit card to avoid their automatic renewals.

Sirius Stilleto 2 – $19

At a press event in New York City today Sirius XM unveiled an iPhone Skydock that re-charges, rebroadcasts over FM and allows your iPhone to function as the controller for a satellite receiver. Because this is now a wired receiver (as opposed to their wireless application which due to licensing restrictions was missing lots of programming) Sirius XM is able to offer their full lineup as well as (previously missing) the complete “Best of SIRIUS” package, including Howard Stern and his two 24/7 channels, Martha Stewart Living Radio, SIRIUS NASCAR Radio, sports play-by-play and the Playboy Radio channel, all controlled by the iPod touch and iPhone. Those looking to avoid stringing an antenna through their car might consider WunderRadio which though it requires a subscription to Sirius will stream most of the forbidden channels over Wi-Fi and 3G.

Sirius XM Skydock via Digital Daily

If I thought I could get away with it I’d make this rumor post of a hardware dock that converts your iPhone/Touch into a Sirius XM satellite receiver nothing more than – BAWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. But let’s be serious (groan) for a moment. If the rumors are accurate, a new Sirius XM SkyDock for iPhone/Touch is set to be unveiled at an underwhelming media event in New York next Wednesday. Apparently Sirius XM is working around the problem that they can’t contractually wirelessly stream ALL of their content (MLB Play-by-Play, NFL Play-by-Play, Nascar Radio, and Howard Stern are all notably absent ) to their iPhone App. So instead they think iPhone users are itching to tether themselves to a cable instead of listening wirelessly. Welcome back to the 1980’s! In proof that iPhone owners aren’t total morons they’ve rewarded Sirius XM Premium Online 57,905 one star ratings (average is 2 stars) in the iTunes App store. Really, can Sirius think that iPhone users are going to strap an adapter to their phone versus streaming favorite Sirius channels via an application like Wunderradio which picks up Stern and costs only $6.99 (one time) versus Sirius XM’s $2.99 monthly recurring fee which omits their best selling channels? I’ve got only one thing to say to Sirius XM – good luck.

Macrumors

Earlier this week Michael posted a tutorial on how to get Sirius or XM radio to play on your iPhone or iPod Touch via the Pocket Tunes Application.

Well as you probably already know, things happen fast in the iPhone world, and now it seems that method, although nice, might not be necessary after all. Continue Reading

Sad news for Sirius radio fans who hoped to listen to Sirius on their iPhone. The still in testing uSirius StarPlayr for iPhone is now on the “discontinued” list before even getting started. This notice posted on their web site indicates it is “in our best interests to discontinue the StarPlayr project”. Can Sirius really have enough money left to sue these guys?

To all of our fans and customers:

NiceMac has decided it is in our best interests to discontinue the StarPlayr project. NiceMac will be issuing refunds for purchasers of StarPlayr for Windows Mobile on a first come first serve basis until corporate funds have been exhausted.

To request a refund simply copy and paste your StarPlayr for Windows Mobile PayPal receipt via the Contact us Email form.

We would all like to thank you for your support, kind words, understanding and patience throughout. We deeply apologize for the inconvenience.

Sincerely,
The NiceMac Team

p.s.

This has been the greatest privilege and honor working with this fantastic NiceMac team. Never in my wildest dreams we would have accomplished so much together. In my book, you are all heroes. Good luck in your future endeavors and enjoy the success in everything you do. I hold your programming abilities and entrepreniual spirit to the highest regard. Thank you. Sincerely, goodtime

Starplayr

Sirius and XM Satellite radio seem like they may ignore the iPhone as a platform for distribution of their paid radio content. Fortunately third party developers have taken some initiative and seem poised to introduce iPhone clients that will receive both Sirius and XM satellite radio on your iPhone. Continue Reading

Yesterday afternoon I had a few minutes in the office before dinner and decided to to tackle a task I thought was only for people with a lot more technical skills. I’m a diehard Sirius Radio Howard Stern listener. Until recently I’d been using two receivers at $10/mo each to listen at home and the office. This was wasteful so I cancelled the extra subscriptions. When I’m near a computer I stream Sirius over the Internet. The problem I had was there’s no official Sirius client for iPhone, BlackBerry or Windows Mobile that gives access to all channels.

My solution was to use Orb – a free service that streams audio and video remotely from your Internet connected Windows PC (there is NO Mac version). To use Orb you create an account, download a small ORB client to your Windows PC and download the uSirius software to setup your Sirius radio stream. This is all free except you MUST have a paid Sirius radio account with online access. The setup was remarkably easy – you can watch my (admittedly grainy poor) video that shows the service in use. To set it up on your BlackBerry – see the instructions in the link below which I used last night and found to be the most complete on the Internet at explaining the steps in detail.

Instructions: How To Stream Sirius to your BlackBerry

Yesterday I spotted a story at Crunchgear saying that certain XM Satellite content was now available on Sirius Satellite (and vice versa). Of course these two money losing Satellite Radio entities recently merged after an overly lengthy prolonged government approval process. All during this regulatory period I kept reading about how the merger would be better and cheaper for the listener. Looks like better and cheaper adds up to $48 per year for someone who is an XM subscriber and wants to add the Sirius channels that contain unique content (Stern, NFL, Nascar, Martha Steward and Playboy). This is good news for those of us with XM Radio embedded in our car. As for my free standing radios I’ll start my cost savings by migrating to listening via the web rather than have multiple (more) costly subscriptions.

Best of Sirius on XM Radio

Ford is moving in-car connectivity further forward with the launch of a next-generation navigation system, available for the first time ever with SIRIUS Travel Link.

With Travel Link, drivers and passengers will have access to up-to-the-minute information and entertainment content through the vehicle’s navigation system. This includes: current gas prices from an estimated 120,000 filling stations; local, real-time traffic information for 78 markets; coast-to-coast weather conditions with five-day forecasts; sports scores, and movie listings. Continue Reading

Hi my name is Wayne and I’m a Howard Stern addict. Been hooked since High School. That doesn’t mean I’m living in a home surrounded by dirty pictures, obscenities, beer funnels and strippers – though that’s the image everyone seems to have whenever I mention Stern. I find his show a funny voice that gets me moving in the morning. With his move to Sirius Satellite Radio I’ve been listening to Sirius Satellite using their web feed and a very cool and free tool called SiriusMac. Here’s why I think it’s so useful – and if you’re a Sirius Satellite radio subscriber and using a Mac you should check it out.

Continue Reading