Having a blog is a lot of work – even if we hadn’t customized our template to the point we ended up knowing a little more about CSS and PHP than we ever cared to, there’s always a post to write, spam comments to delete, and readership to try and grow.

So when we get something right months before it happens, you’ll have to forgive us if we rub it in a bit.

Last September I speculated about the prospect of Howard Stern coming to an iPhone near you – not only due to Sirius’ troubles, but also due to the troubles of the auto industry, which the satellite radio business model was seriously (sorry about that) dependent on.

Well it took a little longer than I had thought, but this just in (from a Sirius conference call earlier today): Howard Stern is coming to an iPhone near you (this spring).

What’s strangely missing from all the press coverage, though, is whether Sirius will be available from iTunes as well from the iPhone.  That would be huge, because I don’t know about other iPhone owners, but the new NPR radio app drains my full battery in no time at all – in fact, the real world usefulness of every iPhone radio app I’ve tried so far is severely limited by the battery drain issue.

Still, it’s good when the future behaves itself and matches our predictions.

Mel, call me.

“Apple will announce Sirius/XM satellite radio support on September 9th”, I wrote back on September 5th.

OK, I was throwing the long ball there and it didn’t work out that way (at least not yet…)  – my bad.

Instead,  Apple’s much anticipated press event was somewhat less earth-shattering: new iPod Nanos and Touches with marginal improvements:

• New iPhone firmware.
• The introduction of HD television content on iTunes (the increased data transfer required for HD being Less of an issue given Apple’s non-streaming service).
• The return of NBC/Universal content to iStore (one prediction I did get right).

However, I remain convinced that since satellite radio is particularly well-suited to mobile users, an iPod/iPhone agreement (along the lines of Apple’s audio book partnership with Audible.com) remains an interesting possibility – and since Sirius/XM still needs a new way to grow quickly (new car sales are way down, the economy is affecting discretionary spending, and their stock price has been hammered), Apple would have substantial negotiating leverage.
“Yahoo mail search broken”, I wrote back on August 8th.

Well, another month has gone by and still is.

Add to that the continued lack of IMAP support and the queasy feeling one gets reading about Andreas losing 5 years’ worth of Yahoo email, and I’m finally off the Yahoo reservation, for good. It’s actually a bit baffling to me – both how cavalier they’ve been about their technical shortcomings and also how little adverse press coverage they’ve received – still, I wonder if the brand is in the slow process of becoming the next AOL or Radio Shack…


Anyway – speaking of IMAP, if you have a smartphone/PDA and a Gmail account, that’s the way to get your email (for more on why it’s superior to POP3, read this).  While Gmail and the iPhone play very nicely via IMAP, I’ve always wanted Google calendar sync as well, though – and I’ve recently found a very nice way to do that: nuevasync.com, a new service (still in beta) that can sync Google contacts and calendars to mobile devices without requiring any client-side software.  It does this by making the Google (and Plaxo) services available via Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync.  In other words, nuevasync acts as the conduit between these two corporate rivals (in fact, the nuevasync.com home page avoids explicitly mentioning ActiveSync, referring only to using “synchronization protocols that are already built in”).  This begs the question: how does Microsoft feel about all this?  Since Nuevasync also makes the Google/Plaxo services available to Windows Mobile devices, to the extent there’s demand for that, it would tend to help drive sales of the Windows Mobile platform – and anything that makes Exchange compatible with more mobile devices could also be a net positive  – but these benefits come at the expense of letting Gmail users (such as myself) avail themselves of a Microsoft protocol.  For free.  For now, though, Microsoft seems to have no problem with Nuevasync, but that could change…

Are you like me – do you lay awake at night wondering what the big news from Apple will be when they host their much-anticipated press conference next Tuesday (Sept. 9)?

While predicting the future is a risky endeavor, I think I’ve got a hunch:

The FCC cleared Sirius to buy XM in an all-stock deal 2 months ago.  Since then, the stock has continued to tank, and tank in a major way (down a full 50% to $1.26 since the deal was announced in June – and this is a stock that was trading for almost $60 back in late 1999).

Meanwhile, new car sales (which were supposed to be the primary driver of satellite radio growth) are also way down.

So:

• Sirius/XM needs to find a new way to grow – and fast.  And bear in mind, the primary value-add for receiving radio via satellite is (and always has been) uninterrupted reception coverage for mobile users.
• Apple wouldn’t mind it if another compelling reason turned up for users to upgrade that iPod.  again.

…I think Apple announces a satellite radio-enabled iPod on Tuesday.

(Full disclosure: I own shares in neither company)