Firstly, why is the choice between no function or a crappy function? Why would every FM radio app necessarily be crappy?
Secondly, why would it be useless when millions of people still listen to FM radio? In the UK for example, according to RAJAR (the UK radio body) 56% of radio listeners use FM compared to DAB or internet, which is around 26 million people.
Thirdly, why does the hardware have an FM receiver at all if I can't use it?
If it allowed me to listen to BBC Radio 4 news on my train journey, which I can't do using data because of a bad signal for most of the journey, then it would be very useful for me.
> Thirdly, why does the hardware have an FM receiver at all if I can't use it?
It doesn't. One of the support chips happens to have an FM transceiver along with the ones the phone uses, but it would also need an antenna and an amplifier to be able to receive FM radio. And a bigger battery and a bigger case (or less battery life). And more software. And more product QA and support.
Headphones can act as an antenna and work without a problem, battery usage is negligible. I've had FM radio in all phones I've ever owned in Europe (high or low end, smart or feature) and finding out you can't do this in the US seems ridiculous.
I just looked into the chip, and can see now that you're right. I agree that Apple probably hasn't enabled it because the amplifier and antenna are unfeasible.
> Firstly, why is the choice between no function or a crappy function? Why would every FM radio app necessarily be crappy?
FM antenna has to be quite big no? My old Cowon media player needed to have the headphones plugged in in order to use the FM function. That would mean that people with Bluetooth headphones (an ever increasing number) are out of luck.
> Thirdly, why does the hardware have an FM receiver at all if I can't use it?
Because the receiver is part of a standard package shipped by Qualcomm and it is probably cheaper to leave it in. What the device does not have is an antenna and an amplifier for the signal (as mentioned in other comments)
No. Here's some food for thought: The wavelengths used for cellular communications in the order of about 0.3m to 0.4m for a lambda/2 dipole that would be an antenna length of 0.15m to 0.2m, which is quite larger than your typical phone.
There's no rubber hose dangling out of modern phones (it used to, 20 years ago), so what's the deal here? Impedance matching,coupling efficiency and planar antenna array designs are. Technically any power of 2 fraction of a given wavelength can be used for an antenna for that wavelength, if assuming an simple wire antenna. But the higher the order, the higher the impedance and the lower the coupling efficiency. With a clever choice of dielectrics the coupling efficiency can be brought back again into manageable regions. And thanks to numerical field simulations we can now design small antenna shapes that can work on much larger wavelengths.
FM radio is receive only, so you do not even require very good coupling efficiency, because you don't have to deal with TX reflection backlash. Hence the problem boils down to designing a reasonably small patch antenna for the 3m band and a receiver circuit that can deal with the high impedance and low coupling efficiency. Back in the day of radios made from discrete components that would have been prohibitively expensive, but these days you can throw a couple hundred of components at some unused corner of your RF grade semiconductor die and have dealt with it.
Making it good would make it more expensive than the returns you can expect. If it is possible to make it good, as the antenna is largely out of control.
Fm is not useless, but bad Fm is.
The third question is silly. Who's side are you arguing? The chip is there because it's more expensive not to have it. It's not like Apple adds Fm so they can laugh at the feature you almost had.
It won't allow you to listen To BBC. At least none of the FM enabled mp3 players I've touched would allow you to listen to FM in anything remotely reasonable.
> At least none of the FM enabled mp3 players I've touched would allow you to listen to FM in anything remotely reasonable
Like a lot of others on this thread, in 2005, I had a tiny Nokia 6610 that let me do exactly that.
Having read about the chip, I can understand why it's there, and I can also understand the probable tradeoffs involved that have lead to the decision not to enable it. But I am still surprised and a little disappointed.
Secondly, why would it be useless when millions of people still listen to FM radio? In the UK for example, according to RAJAR (the UK radio body) 56% of radio listeners use FM compared to DAB or internet, which is around 26 million people.
Thirdly, why does the hardware have an FM receiver at all if I can't use it?
If it allowed me to listen to BBC Radio 4 news on my train journey, which I can't do using data because of a bad signal for most of the journey, then it would be very useful for me.