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Apple Faces Renewed Pressure to Enable FM Radio Chip in iPhones Amid Strong Hurricane Season [Updated]
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There is a lot of talk about the difficulty of adding an antenna for radio. Apple have just managed to make the Watch screen an antenna for LTE, so I am sure they could figure out FM on the phone.
Well, no... Samsung has their FM functionality readily available, and I believe all US carrier variants since the S6 have their FM radios unlocked. See attachment-- I'm getting FM channels on my S8.
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While FM in an iPhone is a good idea, it's no substitute for the $20 battery-powered radio you should own if you live in a prime hurricane zone.
I laugh at the people who think that enabling the FM receiver would cut into Apple Music revenues. lol, the whole reason people got Apple Music is because its not radio! You Apple haters always hate on Apple because they give you no choice, well that's what FM radio is. You listen to their playlist and their commercials. lol, no thanks.
Crazy how all the people here assume that the FM tuners antenna pins (etc.) on the chip are even connected to anything on the iPhone circuit board, much less an antenna.
Better solution, if you live in an earthquake, flood, hurricane, volcano zone, is to buy one one those cheap hand-cranked or solar powered am/fm/sw radios. No battery charger needed. And AM and SW signals go farther.
Better solution, if you live in an earthquake, flood, hurricane, volcano zone, is to buy one one those cheap hand-cranked or solar powered am/fm/sw radios. No battery charger needed. And AM and SW signals go farther.
Did Samsung remove the FM radio capability from their phones? I know they've had the capability for years.
It's not just "flipping a switch." Room would have to be made for some additional components. I'd be *quite* shocked if an additional RF Amplifier weren't required to make FM reception work properly, not to mention some sort of antenna.
Frankly, if this were made a $25 option on the phone, I would turn it down.
The NAB fretting about emergency broadcast availability is the same sort of misdirection we just saw recently from the web advertisers over Safari tracking blocking ruining the economics of the web. They can choke on a [male private part].
Frankly, if this were made a $25 option on the phone, I would turn it down.
The NAB fretting about emergency broadcast availability is the same sort of misdirection we just saw recently from the web advertisers over Safari tracking blocking ruining the economics of the web. They can choke on a [male private part].
Or buy a cheap emergency radio. Simple as that. You can even buy ones that have a hand cranked generator, no batteries required. lol.
I still keep my old ipod nano around specifically because Apple didn't enable the FM radio in the iPhone. I don't know whether there's some issue with the lack of an adequate internal aerial. In the iPods, you had to have the analog earphones connected for the FM to activate as they used the ~2ft leads to the earbuds as an aerial - I doubt apple ever connected this up inside the older iPhones and it's probably not possible with the newer digital interface. Maybe they tried with the internal aerials and just found the experience sucked...
Since the introduction of the iphone, the world has suffered numerous natural disasters causing huge losses of life. Radio stations send out emergency broadcasts so those affected can be kept informed of what it going on. Apple, has the hardware to receive these radio signals but it is deliberately deactivated, for reasons the world is yet to know. These past natural disasters have not prompted Apple to change their mind so what makes people think current natural disasters are going to make them change their mind! it won't
An FM wavelength is huge compared to a digital LTE wavelength. On Samsung phones, it uses the headphone wire to act as an antenna. How would Apple do that on their jack free iPhones?
Better yet, concerned people should get their amateur radio license, and get a portable ham radio rig, antennas and generators (etc.) suitable for providing emergency communication for the rest of their community in a disaster.
The reason Apple charged for that update was more of a legal/accounting issue.
Per AppleInsider:
Here is another article on it.
It happened with a FaceTime update too.
ARRRGGGG!
It's because you can't fit an FM antenna inside the case. It's basic radio physics.
Let me show you why. A typical FM radio station might have a frequency of 102.1. That corresponds to a wavelength of 2.9 meters. To be resonant, an antenna has to be some integer multiple of 1/2 the wavelength, so in this case, it has to be 1.5 meters. You can get reception with smaller antennas, but anything beyond about 1/10 a wavelength gets you practically no signal at all. So in this case, you'd need something at least 30 cm long, which is much larger than your phone.
If you don't believe me, go get this book:
https://www.arrl.org/shop/ARRL-Antenna-Book-23rd-Softcover-Edition/
You can get the signal into the system by using the headphone as an antenna, it's almost long enough so even though efficiency is pretty poor, it works well enough in cities.
But there's no headphone jack on a modern iPhone. So what they are asking for, for all intents, is physically impossible.
FM is a crap solution anyway. What if I'm on the subway? Or away from a city? Or simply listening to my music? Or on a phone call?
FM requires me to stop what I'm doing and hunt around for the right channel, and then listen to a linear program until I hear something that might be interesting.
What you really want is to get a message no matter what you're doing, one that's PUSHED to you instead of you having to find it, and ideally one that knows where you are so it can tell you the right things.
You know, like SMS. Which you get right on your screen no matter what you're doing. Which gives you information immediately. Which can do cell triangulation to tell you the road nearby is closed due to flooding. Which is backed up by batteries and generator.
This whole concept is dumb. FM is already crap for this task, and now they want to legislate it?
As some have stated here, the current phone design lacks a FM antenna and the lack of headphone jack means headphones cannot be doubled as an antenna. If it is possible for the built-in receiver to process digital radio signals using hardware that exists on the phone then maybe it makes sense to activate the radio. Otherwise a new phone design would be required to make the radio work for analog and/or digital signals.
Calls to activate the FM radio are senseless if it is technically not feasible on existing phones. Might it be possible to do so on models that still have a headphone jack? Only Apple knows.
Calls to activate the FM radio are senseless if it is technically not feasible on existing phones. Might it be possible to do so on models that still have a headphone jack? Only Apple knows.