The stalky dock, which leverages iPhone OS 3.0's new hardware support (remember that?), plugs into your car's DC jack, which it depends on for power and support, and will run $120, not including the required subscription to Sirius XM radio. The companion app, which bears no resemblance to Sirius XM's previous radio app, simply sets your iPhone up as a radio controller. Mercifully, it's free. [AllThingsD]

SIRIUS XM RADIO INTRODUCES THE FIRST DEVICE TO RECEIVE LIVE SATELLITE RADIO CONTROLLED BY THE iPOD TOUCH AND iPHONE

XM SkyDock™ allows customers to enjoy live XM and "The Best of SIRIUS" in their vehicles using the iPod touch or iPhone

NEW YORK–August 26, 2009–SIRIUS XM Radio (NASDAQ: SIRI) today introduced XM SkyDock, the first satellite radio controlled by an iPod touch or iPhone. The XM SkyDock is also one of the first products to take advantage of the new hardware control capabilities of iPhone OS 3.0.

Designed for easy use through the existing vehicle audio system, SkyDock has a built-in XM tuner controlled by a free App that users download from the App Store. The App allows control of the XM tuner using the capabilities of the iPod touch or iPhone Multi-Touch user interface. SkyDock will also charge iPod touch and iPhone devices while listening to live satellite radio.

"XM SkyDock will allow millions of users to add live SIRIUS XM Radio capability to their iPod touch or iPhone while in their vehicle," said Bob Law, Group Vice President and General Manager, After Market Division, SIRIUS XM Radio. "XM SkyDock makes their favorite programming from XM and ‘The Best of SIRIUS' available to iPod touch and iPhone users anywhere they drive, coast to coast."

Listeners can use their iPod touch and iPhone to listen to all their favorite sports, talk, news, entertainment and commercial-free music programming, including Oprah Radio, MLB Home Plate, the PGA TOUR Network, Opie & Anthony, Bob Edwards, Jamie Foxx and Blue Collar Comedy. For the first time, subscribers can also listen to 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.

Listeners can also tag songs they hear on XM's music channels for later purchase from the iTunes Store–including songs on XM's 24/7 artist branded commercial-free channels such as Jimmy Buffett's Radio Margaritaville, Elvis Radio, Eminem's Shade 45, The Grateful Dead Channel, B.B. King's Bluesville, Willie Nelson's Willie's Place, Siriusly Sinatra and Bruce Springsteen's E Street Radio. Other features include game alerts and sports ticker, artist and song alerts as well as a stock ticker.

The XM SkyDock is a perfect companion to the SIRIUS XM Premium Online App, which allows subscribers to receive SIRIUS XM's Premium Internet service on their iPhone and iPod touch when they are out of the vehicle and on-the-go, at home, or at the office.

XM SkyDock comes with SIRIUS XM's patent-pending PowerConnect™ technology, which simplifies Do-It-Yourself vehicle installation, working through the existing vehicle radio and making it easy to move from vehicle to vehicle. An Aux In Cable is a standard in-box accessory to facilitate Aux In connections in vehicles with Aux In capability. SkyDock's flexible stalk optimizes the iPod touch or iPhone placement in the vehicle. Customers can view the touch-screen interface in portrait or landscape modes. Accessories include Magnetic Mount Antenna and spacers to accommodate the various iPod touch and iPhone product generations.

XM SkyDock is compatible with iPod touch (1st generation), iPod touch (2nd generation), iPhone, iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS. All models require iPhone OS 3.0 or later.

XM SkyDock will be sold in stores and will also be available at www.shop.xmradio.com with an MSRP $119.99 in fall 2009. The XM SkyDock App will be available at the same time.

This device has been granted preliminary approval by the Federal Communications Commission but is still undergoing evaluation by the Commission.

For more information on XM, please visit www.xmradio.com.

As we previously speculated, others who don't already have a subscription will have to pay $3 a month, which isn't so bad considering the original subscription is around 20 bucks. [Yahoo]

The exact details are unclear from the slides, but it appears that a $2.99 monthly streaming fee may apply. Additionally, there's a shopping cart in the app. Exactly what will Sirius XM subscribers be buying?

We're guessing more details will surface shortly, but what do subscribers in the audience think? Is this an progressive move from the company, or a somewhat sad, last ditch effort to stay alive? (My guess is that it's a bit of both, but if they think that subscribers will buy music a la carte for use in a single app, they are nuts.) [Sirius Investor via Silicon Alley Insider]

The reason for the cancellation is that the app still did not have official approval, possibly due to the fact that a first party app from Sirius itself is also in the App Store pipeline, but that is unconfirmed at this time. And so, since the app was in approval limbo, having not been approved or denied by Apple, the developers chose to fold.

Truly, a sad day for people who want streaming music on their iPhone, but for some reason haven't figured out how great Pandora can be. Still, it sounds like there's hope for an "official" app from Sirius XM. [StarPlayr via TUAW]

Even though service would have likely continued uninterrupted had the freshly-merged company actually filed for bankruptcy, Sirius XM's days of luring in top radio jock talent on big contracts would have likely been over. Now, thankfully, we can carry on without skimping on the Howard Stern. [NY Times]

With Sirius being so late to the party, the only question is whether the service is really worth paying for when there are so many good, free streaming apps out there like Pandora and Slacker. [Orbitcast via The Motley Fool]

Did your favorite channel get the axe? [Orbitcast - Thanks Travis and Tim!]

CEO Mel Karmazin, aka the dude who paid Howard Stern a retarded amount of money, said today that the merger didn't magically fuse together satellite capabilities. Says Automotive News:

Merging XM and Sirius technology and installing it in new vehicles could take as long as 15 years because of the new chips required and automakers' lead time.

Fifteen years—when your car will look like this. Karmazin said other stuff about the subscription business(es), most of it was equally depressing. (No chance of it spreading to Europe and Asia, for instance.) How long do you give satellite radio? I say dead in two years. [Automotive News (subscription required)]

If that's not enough acknowledgment of frailty, it has an microSD slot for you to add your own memory—and your own tunes. And although Best Buy says it's a Pioneer-branded player, these things are all developed by XM, and then licensed to CE companies when they need a branding boost. So it's not like the brand is any guarantee of actual Pioneer DNA.

If that's not bringing you down enough, it costs $280 before the 8GB memory card and XM monthly fees. Sorry, XM, but the revenues isn't charging a lot of money, but getting people to pay it. Good luck with that. [PopSci; Best Buy]

The Best of Sirius on XM
•Howard Stern (Howard 100, and Howard 101)
•Martha Stewart Living Radio
•Sirius NFL Radio*
•Sirius NASCAR Radio*
•Playboy Radio

The Best of XM on Sirius
•Oprah & Friends
•NHL Home Ice*
•The Virus
•Public Radio featuring Bob Edwards
•The PGA Tour Network
•College Sports and NBA

Anything you see missing? [orbitcast]

1. The company(s) would need to freeze prices for three years.
2. "A la carte" options would need to be available within three months of the merger.
3. 8% of their airspace (24 channels) would need to be dedicated to noncommercial and minority programming.

Also of note, the FCC has leaked that Sirius and XM have agreed to open manufacturing on the radios to all companies, creating more marketplace competition (and hopefully some better tech). It's looking more and more like this deal is gonna happen...sometime. [NYTimes]

Though the function to grab sweet sounds from its partner-to-be isn't listed in the Starmate 5's spec sheet, a memo between a testing firm and the FCC authorization staff hinted at Sirius XM interoperability. In a letter asking the testing firm to do another bandwidth test, the FCC said that it "used the satellite radio signal coming from either XM or Sirius."

If the hint means what we think it means, the Starmate 5 could be the first hybrid satellite radio receiver out on the market — kind of a bold move, considering the FCC isn't even thinking about voting on the merger until late May or early June. [Electronista]

Next stop is the FCC. Chief Kevin Martin is vocally hot on competition, so he'll probably squeeze them pretty hard on following through, though he's likely to take the same stance as the DoJ: The environment's so scrambled right now, a single satellite radio company isn't really going to harm consumers. And if they do raise prices and start sucking, people have plenty of other options to abandon them for. On the other hand, they were both already on life support, so this jolt might not be enough to fully re-animte them. [Breitbart]

The Spin Sirius is at a major crossroads right now, as it tries to seal its merger with XM—a merger which still awaits that all-important regulatory approval. Part of Sirius's rationale for why the merger should go forward is that there's plenty of competition nowadays from a myriad of sources—a satellite radio monopoly, the company argues, won't be harmful because consumers can also get their music fixes from online music vendors and portable devices. Sirius wouldn't mind a bit, however, if it had a healthy share of that portable market, which is currently dominated by thin rectangles that store files. The Stiletto 2 can do that, too—though the internal memory is piddling at 2GB—but the product's real hook is the Wi-Fi streaming of Sirius programs. There's also the nifty ability to store 100 hours of shows, a feature which makes the Stiletto 2 resemble an audiocentric DVR. Good stuff, though your mileage will vary according to how much you value Sirius's core properties—Stern, of course, but also the NFL and NASCAR.

Counterspin Aside from the lack of memory in which to store MP3s, the Stiletto's chief fault may be the fact that its radio capabilities are tethered to Wi-Fi. Isn't an appreciable amount of portable music listened to while on the go? So while you're roaming, if I understand things correctly, you're basically stuck with your stored music; it's not until you settle down in one place that you can listen to the satellite channels.UPDATE: My bad, I misread the specs. The 802.11g capabilities are only for when you're out of satellite range. Thanks to all the commenters who noted my goof. Pretty neat, but is that enough to convert non-subscribers? Especially seeing as how Sirius doesn't seem to be subsidizing the Stiletto 2 very much—just $30 off the MSRP, plus a month free if you sign up for a one-year subscription. That just doesn't seem like the kind of deal that's going to lure folks into giving portable satellite radio a try, now, does it?

Mission Accomplished? Sirius is right in one sense: the future of music may well be rental. The current 99-cents-per-song model is going to have problems once access to the celestial jukebox goes under $10 per month. What Sirius is offering is a step in that direction; the only problem is that with radio programming, you're still at the mercy of the DJs. On top of that, does Sirius have any plans to stream via 3G networks? That seems like a mammoth technical challenge, seeing as how we're only just now getting reliable web access for mobile users. But until Sirius can cut itself free from Wi-Fi,UPDATE: See above. Wi-Fi is backup only; my error. Apologies. In any event, Sirius is probably going to be preaching to the choir with the Stiletto—a choir that, more often than not, is going to have first encountered satellite radio as an automotive feature.

Hype-O-Meter 6 (out of 10). The Stiletto 2 is still too expensive and too light on internal memory to break big. But it's an interesting step in the right direction, toward the next generation in portable entertainment. My hope is that, at the very least, this will push Apple and Microsoft to move more quickly on perfecting mobile downloading of media. When I hear a song I like while out shopping for sneakers, by golly, I should be able to download that song right then and there—and I don't want a service provider telling me, "Sorry, we don't have that one." Someday...

Brendan I. Koerner is a contributing editor at Wired, a columnist for Slate, and author of the forthcoming Now the Hell Will Start. His Hype Sheet column appears every Thursday on Gizmodo.

Read more Hype Sheet

Remember, the first four products are going for ridiculous prices, but because of this they are only available on a certain day, in a certain timeslot:

Panasonic 42" 1080p HD Plasma TV
Available on My WishList: November 30
WishList Price: $700 (Retail Price: $1,999)

Dell XPS M1330 Notebook
Available on My WishList: December 3
WishList Price: $900 (Retail Price: $2,079)

Xbox Elite Game System and Five Games
Available on My WishList: December 11
WishList Price: $300 (Retail Price: $649.99)

BMW K 1200 R Sport Motorcycle
Available on My WishList: December 4
WishList Price: $5,000 (Retail Price: $17,000)

The rest of the products below will apparently be on sale until supplies run out; some deals might look similar to Black Friday pricing, while others may be crazy low. Have a look:

Denon Soundbar
WishList Price: $743.99 (Retail Price: $1199.99)

TiVo HD DVR with Service and Wireless Adapter
WishList Price: $399 (Retail Price: $538.98)

Audiovox 8" Picture Frame
WishList Price: $108 (Retail Price: $159.99)

Olive Opus N 250GB Pure Audio Server
WishList Price: $700 (Retail Price: $1,499)

Canon HD Camcorder with 40GB HDD
WishList Price: $500 (Retail Price: $1,299.99)

Helio Ocean with 6 Months Service
WishList Price: $400 (Retail Price: $1,249)

Rock Band Special Edition for Xbox
WishList Price: $50 (Retail Price: $169.99)

Nintendo DS Lite with Two Games
WishList Price: $160 (Retail Price: $199.96)

Toshiba 10.2" Portable DVD Player
WishList Price: $230 (Retail Price: $349.99)

Ultrasone iCans iPod Headphones
WishList Price: $99 (Retail Price: $159)

iStorm Wireless Speakers for iPod
WishList Price: $140 (Retail Price: $199.99)

Sirius Stiletto 2
WishList Price: $279 (Retail Price: $399.99)

Magellan Maestro Portable GPS System
WishList Price: $390 (Retail Price: $599.99)

To see if you can master Amex's wicked little game, visit the official website. [Amex My WishList]

The cute little ZoneBridge is actually the best part of the news to me: rather than paying for a $350 ZonePlayer to connect to your router (which may be somewhere that will never need music), you can drop $100 to start the connection. As we told you earlier, ZoneBridges will also be good for fleshing out the mesh network in big-ass homes.The addition of the two music programs means that the Sonos now has a heady number of music-source choices. Both Rhapsody and Napster offer free anonymous no-credit-card one-month trials, so you'd be dumb not to try out both for the duration before making a decision. I've traditionally favored Rhapsody, but Napster is coming in $3 lower, at $10 per month, so that's going to make it a contender.

The Best Buy Digital Music Store is a Rhapsody-powered service that will cost $15 per month and won't have a free trial. However, it is a way for Best Buy to promote Sonos systems in the store, so I guess it has its purpose. Sonos also has Sirius and Pandora on the dial, for still more options. At some point, does it get too crowded in that Controller? I am starting to wonder. [Sonos]

And in case you were wondering, the fuel finder shot above is a new feature from the Sirius Traffic software found in in-vehicle navigation systems from Alpine (shown here), Eclipse and Panasonic. [Sirius]

We've already given you a rundown of the specs, but probably the coolest new attribute is its MicroSD card slot. There's no limit (yet) as to the capacity you can use to amp up the onboard storage. The slot is stashed under the battery, because Sirius doesn't think you'll be passing those tiny memory cards around. Also new are 802.11g for Sirius' internet audio stream up to 128Kbps, and redesigned car and speaker docks, shown with details in the annotated gallery below.

* SIRIUS and more on the go: enjoy SIRIUS radio PLUS your own personal MP3 music library anywhere
* Radio Replays: automatically stores hours of fresh programming
* Schedule recording: record up to 100 hours of your favorite shows or programs
* Wi-Fi connectivity: listen to SIRIUS Internet Radio over almost any accessible Wi-Fi network
* One-touch recording: quickly store up to 10 hours of individual songs from SIRIUS
* Expandable memory: add micro SD memory to accommodate your MP3 music collection
* Bookmark songs: tag favorite songs to buy using a compatible online music service
* SIRIUS Replay™: pause, rewind and replay up to 60 minutes of live radio
* Easy navigation: surf channels or media files on the fly
* Advanced audio processing: improved bass and customized listening environments
* Personalized Sports Ticker: real-time updates of your favorite sports
* Sports Alert™: track your favorite sports team and race driver
* My SIRIUS Studio™: upload and manage your MP3/WMA files
* Parental controls: easily lock and unlock channels
* Custom performance: add accessories to maximize the experience
* Complete kit includes radio, earbuds, headset antenna, battery, AC power adapter, PC cable and My
SIRIUS Studio™ software

FEATURES:

* Large multi-color display: easy viewing and use
* Selectable colors: match your dash lights and mood
* SIRIUS Universal docking capability
* SIRIUS Replay™: pause, rewind and replay up to 60 minutes of live radio
* FM transmitter or stereo audio output to connect your vehicle's radio
* FM preset function: allows you to store the best FM frequencies in your area for optimum integration
* 30 presets: enjoy fast access to your favorite channels
* S-Seek™ Alert: so you won't miss your favorite artists, songs and sports
* One-Touch Jump™ button: direct access to local traffic and weather, or your favorite channel
* Personalized sports ticker: real-time updates of your favorite sports
* Rotary tuning knob: surf channels on the fly
* Sports Alert™: track your favorite sports team and race driver
* Parental controls: easily lock and unlock channels
* Alarm clock w/snooze: wake up to your favorite channel
* Complete vehicle kit includes radio, dock w/suction cup mount and vent mounts, remote control,
vehicle power adapter, magnetic mount satellite antenna and FM extender antenna