Okay, so I decided to find out for myself if this is a std email response to an inquiry to SXM customer care about the availability of the app...Annnnnnnd...No I did not get the same response.
The response I got was basically thank you for your inquiry about the iphone application. We are here to help. To get you the correct information we will fully research the answers and get back to you within 3 to 5 days.
Mmmm...3 days would be Friday. The response I received read much more like a canned prepared response than the one that is being spread around about the 18th release date. Maybe they got on the ball and reeled some people in that were jumping the gun or maybe it is all pre hype hysteria.
Either way I guess we will know in a couple of days. But it makes sense that the mm's have been keeping this thing in a channel for weeks and they now start to leak or hype info to get it moving up in anticipation of the release.