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iPod touch When will we have FM on iPod Touch...?

A

abacab63

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 14, 2011
10
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This is the only think holding me from changing my Sony MP3 for the iPod touch... seems to me it would be easy especially since it is already on another model. Sounds like a simple marketing strategy to maximize a 'first impulse purchase' followed by a compulsory 2nd purchase to get this feature which I think a lot of ppl are hoping for.

Any insight on when this could available ?
 
I hope we do get it on the next version. Over here we have many nice FM stations - one of which hasn't any commercials (CBC). It has a great choice of music and nice interviews... I prefer listening to that as much as recorded stuff...

I don't think radio is dead.
 
An app would be a good choice indeed but for the few times I'm not near a network, I would need the 'stand alone' capability
 
AM.FM would be a nice addition.
My Gym's TVs have audio transmitted via FM frequencies.
Would be nice to tune in..
 
abacab63 said:
An app would be a good choice indeed but for the few times I'm not near a network, I would need the 'stand alone' capability
Click to expand...
If you want a real radio tuner -- something that can listen to live FM radio broadcasts while you aren't connected to the Internet -- the iPod nano has one built-in.

There are at least a couple 3rd party addons that plug in to the dock connector, which add a real external FM tuner to the iPod touch.

Some of them have a separate calculator-style LCD screen on the add-on itself which you must use to scan for your favourite station.

Griffin has one (called iFM) which includes a custom iOS App, so that you can use your iPod touch or iPhone's touchscreen to control the tuner and choose your station.
 
You would think the ipod touch would be equipped with such a basic feature, yet the nano beats em to it.

Radio is a great feature especially if your power goes out or something you can hear on radio what's being done or listen to some news on the go.
 
The radio stations are trying to get Congress/FCC to require FM tuners on all portable media players. Whether or not this will be successful is another story. I wouldn't mind a built in FM tuner on my iPod Touch - there are very very few open wi-fi connections in West Suburban Boston.
 
I would assume radio cuts into some music selling business for apple, probably not much but that is one reason they might not like it. Also it's an old technology many still use it but I'm sure apple has there reasons
 
I don't understand why you would want a radio in your iPod Touch. There are amazing radio apps in the app store (For $1 TuneIn Radio) I paid $2 for this and I would easily pay 10. Gives you almost any radio station in the world. Why spend $300 on a new iPod Touch with radio capable features or you can pay $1 for the app? Common sense move to me.
 
There's no room in the design for one. Apple is not known to have radio receivers in their iPods anyway.
 
xAnthony said:
I don't understand why you would want a radio in your iPod Touch. There are amazing radio apps in the app store (For $1 TuneIn Radio) I paid $2 for this and I would easily pay 10. Gives you almost any radio station in the world. Why spend $300 on a new iPod Touch with radio capable features or you can pay $1 for the app? Common sense move to me.
Click to expand...

There's very little free wi-fi in my area, so an app would be worthless. Many people assume there is free unlocked wi-fi everywhere, but that's not the case in the Western Suburbs of Boston.
 
I don't have an iPod Touch but I have had every iPhone version and it has always driven me crazy that there's no AM/FM tuner. I use TuneIn Radio to listen to the radio, and it works very well, but it doesn't quite get EVERY station and is kind of mentally annoying that it isn't true radio. I mean, in areas with no data coverage, it's useless. For about a year I was running my old first gen iPhone with a data block/custom APN (or whatever it's called) and thus was getting away with no data plan. Needless to say TuneIn radio wouldn't work.

Since the iPhone has no FM tuner and NEVER has had one, I would highly, highly doubt it ever WILL get one. I'm sure Steve Jobs and Apple as a whole believe "radio is dead" and/or antiquated like the poster above and as such I highly doubt any of these iDevices will ever have a true radio tuner.

The justification that you can get radio apps on the Touch via WiFi is kind of silly. If you're at home to be able to use WiFi to run your radio app, why wouldn't you just use a normal radio? This is why the Touch (and the iPhone too) need true radio tuners.
 
benhollberg said:
Agree. I don't think they'll ever do it but I think they should, preferable AM.
Click to expand...

(Forgive me if I'm missing some sarcasm here...)

Why would anybody prefer an AM tuner over FM? Certainly in some markets, there might be value in providing a combined FM + AM tuner. But if I had to pick just one or the other, FM would win hands down.

It seems to me that in the developed world, AM's only remaining potentially viable markets are talk radio and golden oldies. Any reasonably modern music just sounds awful on AM. (It's not ideal on FM either, but AM is just so much worse.)

In my city, most AM stations (even the talk radio stations) went off the air in the 1970s and 1980s when the station owners switched over to FM. The last of the AM stations switched over to FM in 2008. An AM tuner would be absolutely worthless to me.
________

Anyway, as far as the remark about the iPod touch not having enough room for an FM tuner... In fact, the iPod touch ALREADY HAS an FM tuner -- it's built in to the same chip as the WiFi and Bluetooth transceiver. As far as space for the antenna... The FM antenna is never built in to the body of portable music players and cell phones. The headphone cord doubles as the FM antenna.
 
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I live in Salt Lake City, a large market. Everything here is available on FM in addition to some older AM. AM quality is way worse but way better for emergency and ability to reach far. I don't ever listen to radio for music. Only sports radio and I listen to it over data if possible.
 
I don't what planet you live in or how long you lived..

decadentdave said:
People still listen to FM? That's so last century.
Click to expand...

It is still a mystery why Apple hasn't included a Radio Tuner (FM + AM) on the iPod touch in the first place. Had I know this, I wouldn't have bought it but I guess I overestimated Steve Jobs. The Radio tuner on the iPod would be a vital peace for many folks who want to listen to local news, local talk shows, music and also some live sports broadasts of local teams, not to mention the option to tune in for some emergency radio broadcasts in case of some power outage.

I don't if Apple did this intentionally, which I have no doubt about it, but whoever made that decision should be hang for dead:eek:

BTW, 2 years ago there was a buz about Apple making an FM app available.. What happened? I think it is time to boycott APPLE products:mad::mad:
 
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