Ok I must say I am extremely impressed With the XM Skydock. The install was easy, took about 20 minutes, 3 minutes was waiting for the area of the car I had to clean to dry. The only issue I ran into was I thought the cable that they give you that hooks up the receiver is short by about 6 inches (installed on a 06 Honda Civic). Activating the radio itself was a breeze, i did it all on line and never had to talk to a human which I enjoy. But if you have to speak to someone, it will be Bob from India. The sound quality of the radio was far beyond what I was expecting, it was crisp and clear, sounded just as good as music from my iPod. The app for the iPhone is perfect, you can tell they took the time to do it right the first time. Listened to it for the past two days and found no glitches or bugs in it yet, its absolutely beautiful. Overall I am pleased with this radio and would recommend it to anyone. XM XVSAP1V1 SkyDock with Built-In XM Tuner for iPhone and iPod Touch (Black)
First, some savings tips: Found an XM promotion online for a year of service for $77 (50% off the reg $12.95/mo rate); you have to call a special number (800-347-0600, which as a bonus appears to reach a U.S. call center) and ask for it. As of 12Nov09 it's still good but only for their basic package. I wanted XM Everything & the Best of Sirius, which is $16.99; the rep offered 3 months of service for $29.99 then the regular rate after that. Not nearly as attractive a deal but hey, at least they threw me a bone. Also saw online that XM will credit your account $12.95 for having a credit card on your account for recurrent billing. Asked for that and got it too.
On to the Skydock. Based on a few days' use, it's a very, very well done product. Installation was pretty easy, with the antenna obviously the hardest part. It sticks quite well to metallic surfaces but you then have to run the wire to a spot where you can plug it in to the Skydock when it's in use. So the challenge is hiding it behind panels, carpet, etc. along the way. A huge advantage over dedicated sat radio units is that you'll usually take your iPhone with you when leaving the car. One less thing for someone to steal, and it's also easy to detach and hide the Skydock if you're concerned about break-ins.
The iPhone app has been flawless except for a couple of minor irritations like occasionally having to tap several times before an input will 'take'. Also, when changing stations, the buttons and labels are small enough and far enough away while driving to require more attention than a typical car radio, so caution is definitely required. But the app is very intuitive and the ability to set alerts so you can switch over and listen to favorite artists/teams when they're on is a very nice touch. There are really too many cool features to list, like being able to choose favorite teams and see a little ticker with news about them.
It's a definite plus that all your iPhone/iPod functions work in the Skydock. When a call comes in, the programming or iPod music fades out and then back in when the call is over. I've seen complaints that the Skydock doesn't feed phone audio to the vehicle speakers but that's a 'so what?' for me since I use a Bluetooth earpiece anyway. It's very nice to have the iPhone handy in front of you when you're sitting at a light and want to take a quick look at e-mail or whatever. (UPDATE - Check your local laws. Since my original review last year, Georgia has outlawed texting/e-mailing or even reading messages while operating a vehicle. Please stay legal and, most importantly, safe.)
The sound is terrific using the supplied Aux cable, which we have in one vehicle. We live about 50 miles north of Atlanta and the FM method is good most of the time in the other vehicle, but this morning I drove downtown for the first time with the Skydock and it didn't work well at all. The problem in a large city like Atlanta appears to be that there are no empty FM channels that don't have a working channel on the next frequency up/down the scale, and the static/interference when driving near the city made the Skydock pretty much useless. In fairness, that's based on having chosen four empty freqs to use the Skydock with (another nice feature is that it can accommodate multiple frequencies) so I still have much of the FM spectrum to explore and may get better results in the future. Still, it's something to keep in mind for those in large cities.
One minor minus is that for bandwidth reasons maybe, Atlanta weather/traffic is on the same channel as Miami's. You sometimes have to wait for the Miami info to finish before you hear your own.
What's truly annoying is Sirius/XM's nickle and dime approach to customers. For example, I'd much rather have Sirius service but though the companies have merged, Skydock is an exclusively XM product. You can't have a Sirius subscription. The best XM package is $12.95 a month. But if you want NFL play-by-play or Howard Stern for example - not coincidentally, both highly popular Sirius products - you have to pay another $4 monthly. If you decide to drop the Sirius add-on, that'll cost you $5 to make the change. Have another, separate satellite radio? They make you get a SEPARATE subscription. Ridiculous. Nothing earth-shaking but irritating nonetheless.
And one more thing, not a dealbreaker but still very annoying, is that on Sirius' NFL play-by-play, there's a national feed but you can also choose either the home team or away team broadcasts. You only get that option on XM for prime-time games and of course that is never mentioned.
XM's crappy policies aside, Skydock is an outstanding product and highly recommended, especially for those who like me own an iPhone and have been on the fence about satellite radio.
I bought the SkyDock at BB last week and I love it! Sirius XM really did a good job with this. It was a breeze to setup. Just plug it in the cig adapter (it fits VERY snuggly) and plug in the antenna. Download the SkyDock app from the app store and call/go online to activate your subscription. Even before you activate, you can still use the SkyDock to listen to your mp3s or stream music from any other music app. When I first saw pictures of the SkyDock I thought the stalk looked a little odd and might be flimsy. But it's very sturdy and works great to let you position your device exactly where you want it. The new "PowerConnect" FM transmitter sounds very good and makes installation much simpler than other sat rad devices. I no longer have to have the extra SureConnect wires in the car that I was using with my XMp3. Of course if you have an aux in in your car that's going to give you better sound than using the FM transmitter. As for the app, it is extremely well designed and very intuitive. It's very easy to flip through categories, channels and select favorites while driving. There isn't a "scan" feature which would be nice, but it doesn't take long to figure out where to swipe and touch without looking (keep your eyes on the road!) to do your own channel scanning. Sirius obviously spent a lot of time designing and testing this. It's nearly perfect for a v1.0 app. This is an amazing device! Thank you Sirius XM!!! - Xm Radio - Ipod Touch - Iphone - Xm'
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