Funny, I listen to NPR on FM constantly and see no need to have it on my phone. Isn't a radio recommended in all disaster-preparedness kits? Should Apple also build a water purifier and flares into the iPhone?
Amidst renewed pressure from the National Association of Broadcasters, FCC chairman Ajit Pai has now issued a statement urging Apple to activate the FM radio capabilities built into the wireless modem of every iPhone.
Pai said he hopes Apple will "reconsider its position" following Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria, which have devastated parts of the United States, including Florida and Texas, and Caribbean islands like Barbuda, Dominica, and Puerto Rico.
Powerful storms can leave thousands or millions of people without power or cellular service for weeks or even months, and over-the-air FM radio can provide vital access to weather alerts and other life-saving information.
Pai added that "it is time for Apple to step up to the plate and put the safety of the American people first."
His full statementai has advocated for the activation of the FM tuner in all smartphones before, but this is the first time he has called out Apple by name.
A study by the National Association of Broadcasters last year found only 44 percent of the top-selling smartphones in the United States had FM radio capabilities enabled. 94 percent of the unactivated devices were iPhones.
Both the Qualcomm and Intel chips that enable Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity in every iPhone have a built-in FM tuner that would allow people to listen to FM radio over the air. Apple has not enabled the functionality, forcing users to use an app to stream FM radio over Wi-Fi or cellular data.
Apple hasn't revealed why it keeps the FM radio functionality disabled. Some critics suggest it could be to avoid losing Apple Music subscriptions, but the real reason is probably deeper than that.
We'll update this article if Apple responds.
Article Link: FCC Urges Apple to Protect Safety of Americans by Activating FM Radio Chip in iPhones
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FCC Urges Apple to Protect Safety of Americans by Activating FM Radio Chip in iPhones [Updated]
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Next question will be why Apple is not implementing an ATSC 3.0 tuner in Apple TV 4K! http://ATSC.org
Not including FM because the user experience sucks sounds like an Apple thing to do. Including FM for public welfare sounds like an Apple thing to do. It may require new hardware in a future generation, but I wouldn't be surprised if they change position on this.
Apple does react to input through their feedback channel: https://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html
Apple does react to input through their feedback channel: https://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html
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I have no idea how hard or easy it would be to enable FM functionality. My answer to Tork was about this: "They can’t enable it because there is no antenna! FM requires a long antenna (the headphone wire) and there’s no headphone jack."
I'm listening. Go on...
It isn't really about disabling it, as it was never enabled in the first place. It isn't a matter of just flipping a switch, they would have to essentially build an app to let you select a channel and play the audio from the receiver.
Even still, they should add it, even if they bury it in some settings menu as "emergency FM radio" or something similar.
Subsequent posts to both mine and yours state that it's a hardware issue, but if it was just a software issue, an unsupported 6-year old iPhone 4 isn't going to receive any update anyway, so your point is moot. I thankfully don't live in a hurricane or other disaster area, but if I did, I'd make sure I had something that would work if the worst struck. It's the whole reason one might keep emergency candles and matches in case the power goes out. The climate here rarely drops below -6 celcius (21.2 farenheit), but I still have a hat and a scarf in case it gets a tad nippy. Perhaps instead I should rely on my phone for warmth.
As for the poorest, there are non-smartphones out there for less than $20 and an FM radio can be bought for less than $10, so that's their $30 well spent.
Up till my galaxy s3 or something like that I used fm radio on my phone. Used it quite a bit too. The headphone cable was the antenna (which would be one stumbling block for the iphone ). Wouldn't mind having the feature back in my s7.
If Apple do, Samsung will surely reenable it again too.
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/m.gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/news/samsung-explains-why-galaxy-s4-doesnt-come-with-fm-radio-355456?amp=1&akamai-rum=off
). Wouldn't mind having the feature back in my s7.If Apple do, Samsung will surely reenable it again too.
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/m.gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/news/samsung-explains-why-galaxy-s4-doesnt-come-with-fm-radio-355456?amp=1&akamai-rum=off
So, you are not in favor of it being part of the iPhone?
I thought I read roughly 50% of phones don't have it and of that 50% over 90% were iPhones.
Your opinion of the commissioner is moot. Either it is a good idea that should be implemented or it isn't.
If the federal government can, for TV manufacturers under Clinton, require the implementation of the V-chip in all new TV so parents can control what their children see then why can't it mandate this safety feature? I'll answer my own question. $$$$$$$$ for Apple, money for App developers, money for artists, money for lobbyists and money for legislators. You can take that to the bank. See what I did there.
My guess is, this is less about safety and more about the chairman putting on a dog and pony show for FM station owners...
The problem is that all of us armchair engineers typing away furiously at the forum don't even know how the FM portion of the radio chip is wired up. If it is disconnected, all the wailing in the world could not make Apple add FM to a circuit board that is disconnected. They could turn it "on", but it'd still be slightly less useful than a cheap FM radio that's had its antenna snapped off. The cheap radio would still have the wires leading to the antenna to pick up signal with, if highly attenuated.
Someone can (and maybe should) inspect a teardown or do one to figure out if and where the FM antenna pins are going on the radio chip. That would do a better job settling the question than the back and forth happening here.
But at the end of the day, without an antenna, and without that antenna hooked up to the radio chip (because that's also important), it doesn't really matter that Apple can "turn on the feature" in the chip.
From what I've heard, it's the US carriers who originally banned the radio. They'd rather Americans paid for data plans to listen to music.
That said, around 2015, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint said they were going to enable FM radios in their Android phones that could support it. Anybody know if they did?
That said, around 2015, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint said they were going to enable FM radios in their Android phones that could support it. Anybody know if they did?
The reason almost every phone already has this FM chip is because it is baked into the same chip used for cellular. So your choice is: buy a chip with FM baked in, or buy a chip with FM baked in. In developing countries, the FM part is wired up and enabled as it is a popular way to get access to information day-to-day. So Qualcomm includes it as a feature on all their RF chips aimed at mobile devices. Intel's chips look like they don't carry the feature anymore, so that may be another issue: anyone with an Intel LTE chipset in their iPhone would be excluded from the feature. But the reality is that I don't think the FM part of the Qualcomm chip is actually wired to anything, as that would be additional engineering effort on a feature they don't intend to ship.
Here's the thing, if the FCC really wants to make this stick, they can make it a requirement for new devices. Right now, they are just blowing hot air and puffing up their chests in an effort to look good without actually doing anything about it.
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And when the local cellular service is down, but a radio station 50 miles away is operational, you'll be happy for that FM radio when the dam breaks.
They Should...an i hope AM is the too
Why is turned off to start with... to encourage use of Apple music?
Why is turned off to start with... to encourage use of Apple music?
From what I was told by some Apple tech people (designers), they lack room for an antenna in the device and they don't have the chips socketed in a manner to have anything else as a workable antenna. I asked why not use the wired headphones (this discussion was pre-iPhone 7 days) and he just shrugged.
Activating the radio will do nothing. Apple would need to write software, drivers, apps.
This is a stupid story. They should identify 20 people who needed the radio to survive.
If you think you might need a radio in a disaster - buy a radio and some spare batteries. People are ridiculous.
This is a stupid story. They should identify 20 people who needed the radio to survive.
If you think you might need a radio in a disaster - buy a radio and some spare batteries. People are ridiculous.
No, it will work. Don't be short sighted. There's still a lightning port (among other ways).
And you have any proof that the Lightning port is engineered to function as an antenna connector and that it actually is physically connected to the antenna pins on the radio chip?
And what about the iPhones with the Intel modem? No FM chip there at all.
Completely fair point .... But the implementation I've usually seen with this is using the wires of the attached earbuds or headphones as the FM radio antenna for the chip. If it's not wired up in a way that allows that? Then yeah, that's a problem.
But Apple DID have FM radio built in on some of their iPods, so it seems at least possible they implemented the same design in the iPhones but simply turned the chip off.
But Apple DID have FM radio built in on some of their iPods, so it seems at least possible they implemented the same design in the iPhones but simply turned the chip off.
If the FCC wanted to be helpful, they would help define an emergency frequency in the cellular bands that uses similar encoding as cellular, and define a broadcast protocol or gently modify an existing protocol that allows cell towers or overhead airplanes or whatever to send out a multicast audio message. The idea would be to define the whole scheme such that it could be implemented in the microcode of a programmable baseband chip, without changing the silicon.