FM radio on iPhone ??

Dublin Spur

this is the most frustrating thing about my iPhone !

The phone needs a strong 3G signal or Wi-Fi to pick up and maintain local FM radio (via various radio station Aps). You'd be listenining to something interesting on the radio on the bus home from work and then, out of the blue complete silence and 5 mins (buffering), its so head wrecking !!

My old non-smart phone (sony eriksen) had great FM coverage and never broke up on me. It's hard to believe with all it's cutting edge technology, that Apple have not addressed the simple issue of FM radio outside 3G or Wi-Fi zones. Suely a simple FM antena/receiver would solve everything.

Anyone know if a fix is available ?

Cheers

Zcott

There is no way there'll ever be an FM receiver in an iPhone. Best bet is a new carrier that has a decent 3G signal.

Cyrus

or podcasts!

or something like this:

http://the-gadgeteer.com/2010/07/15/griffin-ifm-radio-receiver-for-iphoneipod-review/

grizzly

How about something like this?

Creamy Goodness

currently unavailable, also requires you to have a 4S or below.

OP sorry but apple are quite quick to remove dead technology on their devices.

they first did it with floppies.
then they did it with cd drives.
then they did it with spinning hard drives.
then they did it with adobe flash.
you can see where i'm going :pac:

LukeS_

Just to clarify: You're not receiving that signal through FM, you're streaming/downloading audio from the app itself. If it's that big of an issue, just buy a very small cheap MP3 and use that for FM radio. Not the most practical, but it'd do the job.

It's not that Apple haven't got to it yet, it's that they don't want FM radio in their devices. They never have had it AFAIK, not even on their very first iPods.

LukeS_

Creamy Goodness wrote: »

currently unavailable, also requires you to have a 4S or below.

OP sorry but apple are quite quick to remove dead technology on their devices.

they first did it with floppies.
then they did it with cd drives.
then they did it with spinning hard drives.
then they did it with adobe flash.
you can see where i'm going :pac:

FM is far from "dead technology". :rolleyes:

TheBoffin

There are various attachments for iphone that claim to have a FM receiver built into them, perhaps this is the best option.

Not sure if this is for your car or walking about.

I use my iphone for listening to internet radio in the car. I have an iphone 5 which supports network multipath meaning it can use both the 3G and Wifi combined to select the best option for connectivity.

The phone itself is on Three Ireland and I have a separate modem in the boot of the car with roof mount antenna which is on the emobile network that shares out via wifi

I have very good coverage on all of my routes so far, i use it with the TuneIn pro app and the belkin clear scan connector. The Tune In app allows you to set the buffer and auto re-connect options to your own settings.

Creamy Goodness

LukeS_ wrote: »

FM is far from "dead technology". :rolleyes:

explain why it isn't? it's been superseded by digital radio and more practical and higher quality methods of transmission have come up since FM's inception.

In apple's world FM was dead before CD drives were.

TheBoffin

explain why it isn't? it's been superseded by digital radio and more practical and higher quality methods of transmission have come up since FM's inception

Try tell the BAI that one

scruffmonkey

LukeS_ wrote: »

It's not that Apple haven't got to it yet, it's that they don't want FM radio in their devices. They never have had it AFAIK, not even on their very first iPods.

The Nanos have fm

Piliger

Dublin Spur wrote: »

this is the most frustrating thing about my iPhone !

The phone needs a strong 3G signal or Wi-Fi to pick up and maintain local FM radio (via various radio station Aps). You'd be listenining to something interesting on the radio on the bus home from work and then, out of the blue complete silence and 5 mins (buffering), its so head wrecking !!

My old non-smart phone (sony eriksen) had great FM coverage and never broke up on me. It's hard to believe with all it's cutting edge technology, that Apple have not addressed the simple issue of FM radio outside 3G or Wi-Fi zones. Suely a simple FM antena/receiver would solve everything.

Anyone know if a fix is available ?

Cheers

A fix ? Get an FM radio of some sort I guess.

I am delighted that Apple have never given in to the demands to include retrograde tech in iPhones. The iPhone is about leading edge tech. All of my iPhone radio apps give me access to radio from all over the world. And if I want to listen, I find a wifi point.

sparksfly

Leading edge tech is not worth a crap when the function that you want is missing.
FM is the only stable mobile radio option while there is only a half assed 3g coverage in this country. Carrying around a second device when you have already paid dearly for an Iphone is rubbish.
I ditched the Iphone for the Nokia Lumia 820 which has a great FM radio. Use it loads and love it.

JDxtra

There is no FM radio on most Apple devices for a reason. Is not because it's old tech, it's because it encourages you to load your device with more content - with the hope of some of this being purchased from their Apple Store.

FM radio is not revenue generating, so it's bye bye.

Samsung are doing the same now, I don't think any of their LTE handsets have FM radios. It's something I missed a lot when I went from a Nokia N86 to an iPhone 4 but I don't listen to anywhere near as much radio now anymore.

I don't agree with the "FM is dead technology" bit - DAB is not a worthy successor because of poor coverage and sound quality that is actually worse than a good FM signal.

Piliger

sparksfly wrote: »

Leading edge tech is not worth a crap when the function that you want is missing.

Only when the function you want is 20th century old hat tech.

FM is the only stable mobile radio option while there is only a half assed 3g coverage in this country. Carrying around a second device when you have already paid dearly for an Iphone is rubbish.

Hence why I don't do it.

I ditched the Iphone for the Nokia Lumia 820 which has a great FM radio. Use it loads and love it.

Sounds like it is pitched at the perfect audience.

Dublin Spur

Piliger wrote: »

A fix ? Get an FM radio of some sort I guess.

I am delighted that Apple have never given in to the demands to include retrograde tech in iPhones. The iPhone is about leading edge tech. All of my iPhone radio apps give me access to radio from all over the world. And if I want to listen, I find a wifi point.

Difficult to find a wi0fi point on the Bus

It seems to me that Apple have ignored a flaw in their product, it's such an obvious gap.

10 years ago you could listen to local radio stations through mobile phones,easy peasy.

Now 10 years on - it's just an inconsistant mess with the iphone.
Yeah I know it really down to the 3G signal, but the bottom line is that millions of Apple customers must be a little pissed off with the inconsistancy of the App method of listening to radio. It's just very very annoying.

Zcott

Dublin Spur wrote: »

It seems to me that Apple have ignored a flaw in their product, it's such an obvious gap.
[snip]
millions of Apple customers must be a little pissed off with the inconsistancy of the App method of listening to radio.

Well now I doubt there's millions of people wanting an FM radio in their iPhones. TuneIn works fine for me.

Piliger

Dublin Spur wrote: »

but the bottom line is that millions of Apple customers must be a little pissed off with the inconsistancy of the App method of listening to radio. It's just very very annoying.

Yet however pissed you may be .... there is no evidence of any unhappiness among iPhone users. Excepting yourself and a few others of course.

copacetic

Creamy Goodness wrote: »

explain why it isn't? it's been superseded by digital radio and more practical and higher quality methods of transmission have come up since FM's inception.

In apple's world FM was dead before CD drives were.

That's rubbish tbh, fm radio is going nowhere for another 20 or 30 years at least and apple have supported it on the nanos.

They don't provide it as they know loads of people would use it.

I know loads of people with iphones who would prefer a simple radio built in then have to use an unreliable network service and waste piles of data just to listen to radio on a commute. They love without it or carry a little radio because they have no option and want the iPhone for it's other benefits.

Piliger

copacetic wrote: »

They don't provide it as they know loads of people would use it.

Bizarre post of the week.

copacetic

copacetic wrote: »

That's rubbish tbh, fm radio is going nowhere for another 20 or 30 years at least and apple have supported it on the nanos.

They don't provide it as they know loads of people would use it.

I know loads of people with iphones who would prefer a simple radio built in then have to use an unreliable network service and waste piles of data just to listen to radio on a commute. They love without it or carry a little radio because they have no option and want the iPhone for it's other benefits.

Exactly. Radio apps are great for listening to radio stations that are normally out of reach but if I had the choice, I wouldn't use them for local stations. While EDGE or 3G works for radio streaming, it's not the most efficent way. It eats battery power whereas a simple FM radio chip uses very little power.

I once read that the iPhone 4 actually had FM radio hardware inside it but it's either disabled in the OS or not physically wired up. The Broadcom Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip also supports FM reception and transmission but Apple chose not to implement it.

Piliger

Piliger wrote: »

Bizarre post of the week.

Not really. People using FM radio means less potential revenue for the iTunes store, simple.

LionelNashe

Dublin Spur wrote: »

this is the most frustrating thing about my iPhone !

The phone needs a strong 3G signal or Wi-Fi to pick up and maintain local FM radio (via various radio station Aps). You'd be listenining to something interesting on the radio on the bus home from work and then, out of the blue complete silence and 5 mins (buffering), its so head wrecking !!

My old non-smart phone (sony eriksen) had great FM coverage and never broke up on me. It's hard to believe with all it's cutting edge technology, that Apple have not addressed the simple issue of FM radio outside 3G or Wi-Fi zones. Suely a simple FM antena/receiver would solve everything.

Anyone know if a fix is available ?

Cheers

I agree - I have a phone that is paid for by work, but if it was my own phone I wouldn't be happy to pay for the data needed to listen to the radio. The FM radios on my old Nokia phones were perfect.

Some apps are better than others. I gave up on the Newstalk app completely becuse of buffering issues, and use the TuneIn Radio app instead (to listen to Newstalk). And failing that, Podcasts (Jeff Garlin, Michael Ian Black, Marc Maron, Gutterballs)

SpaceTime

Yeah, it's definitely down to revenue streams for iTunes.

Apple's really got no interest in adding an extra antenna or chip for FM radio as they make no money out of it and you should be using their cool, hip and trendy iTunes services instead and giving them money!

FM radio's far from dead and it's a cheap, practical way of delivering very high quality sound to a device that needs almost no technology at all to listen to it.

Digital radio's really had very little impact at all and it's a very flawed technology in many ways. Analogue FM radio remains the absolute king of the airwaves when it comes to audio broadcasting and I think it's going to be around for a long time yet.

Digital TV made perfect sense : better pictures, more channels, better sound when compared to its analogue predecessors.
Digital radio however, didn't really give consumers any amazing choices and broadcasters don't like it because it increased competition and costs. When consumers want more choice these days they tend to turn to online radio and podcasts.

Also, digital radio receivers remain expensive and bulky because there has been so little adoption that manufactures haven't really tried very hard.

Where as FM receivers are dirt cheap, simple technology that uses extremely little power!
FM's old tech, but it's very, very effective at what it does and produces sound that often surpasses DAB broadcasts as in most cases DAB's squeezed into low bit rate streams that sound rubbish. It's not known as the Diabolical Audio Broadcasting system for nothing!

SpaceTime

One more point though :

It doesn't make a lot of sense anymore as Apple's already got loads of competition on the iOS platform from Spotify, Deezer, TuneIn Radio and even YouTube to name but a few.

I don't think the iTunes revenues are anything like they predicted.

I seem to spend most of my time using Spotify these days.

copacetic

Piliger wrote: »

Bizarre post of the week.

Jeez thanks, maybe have even a little think there and you might understand it.

Rambo

The new A7 chip has a built in FM radio but apple will never release code for it.

http://www.tuaw.com/2013/09/24/chipworks-analysis-of-iphone-5s-a7-and-m7-chips-highlights-apple/

and another thing the A7 chip is made by Samsung LOL

Dublin Spur

still amazes me that Apple would not waht their devise to do as many things as possible

this would be such an easy thing to add and would close off a silly annoying gap

their iphone does less than 10 year old mobile phones in this area, it's quite sad really

SpaceTime

The other very annoying feature of the iPhone that puts me off it entirely is the fact that it will not let you turn off the fake tone dialing noise the dialler keypad makes. The only way to shut it up is to silence the whole phone!

I would assume the radio chip is generic so they would probably have an FM capability built in. It's probably more difficult for the manufacture to remove the capability than to just ignore it in software.

Just because the chip can do it doesn't mean the software or the antenna system can handle FM radio.

Creamy Goodness

Rambo wrote: »

The new A7 chip has a built in FM radio but apple will never release code for it.

http://www.tuaw.com/2013/09/24/chipworks-analysis-of-iphone-5s-a7-and-m7-chips-highlights-apple/

and another thing the A7 chip is made by Samsung LOL

all apple's SoC (system on a chip) have been made by samsung. they've also made the ram, the memory and the screens of iPhones before. There are 2 companies in the entire world who can make components to the build quality that apple require and secondly to the sheer volume they require.

Dublin Spur wrote: »

still amazes me that Apple would not waht their devise to do as many things as possible

this would be such an easy thing to add and would close off a silly annoying gap

apple has always been about the user experience how everything works together. they take the approach of "doing a few things right, rather than cramming every 'feature' into the phone. Apple have the perfect balance between their hardware and software, everything just works (i know that's a cliche). If you want to see what an iPhone is like with every possible feature look at the samsung galaxy s4, which surpassingly enough has every feature a consumer could possibly want (not want) and samsung have publicly said their software needs work - http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/6/5071994/samsung-analyst-day-2013-software-investment

Dublin Spur wrote: »

their iphone does less than 10 year old mobile phones in this area, it's quite sad really

you really aren't comparing the iPhone to the flagship phone of 2003 are you? I had this phone and christ it's awful compared to the iPhone.



also just because a phone of 10 years ago had a feature you want doesn't mean that 10 years time tech needs it. Now if you'd excuse me I'm going to the store to buy a blu-ray player with a VCR attached to it.