
The hidden FM radio in your pocket and why you can't use it - anigbrowl
http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2015/04/16/400178385/the-hidden-fm-radio-inside-your-pocket-and-why-you-cant-use-it/
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kevinskii
_But Jot Carpenter, vice president of government affairs for CTIA-The Wireless
Association, resists the move to turn on the FM chip... "What Americans really
want is the ability to stream, download and customize music playlists to meet
their personal preferences," Carpenter said..._

I wonder if the people whose job it is to make these sorts of patronizing
arguments privately feel embarrassed when doing so.

~~~
grecy
I work at a telco that constantly makes ridiculous patronizing arguments.

The people making those statements are drinking so much kool-aid they honestly
don't even know they're talking nonsense. They actually believe it to their
core.

~~~
toomuchtodo
I'm 32, pay $10/month for Spotify, and T-Mobile doesn't count music services
towards my data cap. I haven't listened to the radio in my car in over a year.

Even if I'm an outlier, Spotify still has a free tier. Why would I go back to
the radio? That would be like trading Netflix back in for Blockbuster Video.
_shudder_

~~~
wtallis
How enticing would it be if T-Mobile's net neutrality violation were stopped?

~~~
RubyPinch
Its only a violation if its a paid exchange or an affiliate, no?

I don't know if that is the case or not in this situation, but it could be.
Not everything becomes a violation

~~~
wtallis
If there's money changing hands, it's bribery or extortion. If there's no
money changing hands, it's still at least non-neutrality: the ISP is picking
winners by determining which service providers get a competitive edge.

------
mrshoe
While half-baked conspiracy theories are fun, a good journalist would've
consulted a few more sources to get to the bottom of this story.

FM radio requires a large antenna. It will not work without one. The 5th
generation iPod nano (2009) was the first iPod with an (enabled) FM radio. We
used the headphone wire as the antenna. It worked well enough. While there was
a tiny speaker in those iPods, headphones were the only practical way to
listen to audio.

That's not the case with phones. People listen to the built-in speaker, and
they listen over bluetooth and WiFi. It's becoming less and less common to
plug headphones into these devices. That being the case, including an FM radio
feature would just be a horrible experience for the majority of users: they'd
hear nothing but static, all the time. I don't know about the other smartphone
makers, but Apple will not ship something that will likely be a horrible
experience for most users. Couple that with very low demand from users (as the
article points out) and there's no FM radio on iPhones.

~~~
Lord_Zero
I dont see why we cant include a software feature to prompt the user for
headphones and still allow sound to the loudspeaker.

~~~
ctdonath
Because having to attach headphones only to not use them as headphones makes
for a stupid-looking user experience. Most users don't comprehend "antennas",
much less using headphone wires as such. Prompting for headphones but using
the speaker would result in most users coiling up the headphone cable (in
bewilderment) which pretty much defeats the point of having an antenna.

Never mind the fact that not all users would use headphones not suitable for
use as an FM antenna (too long or short, wrong impedance matching, etc).

------
nostromo
This is poor journalism, particularly coming from NPR.

The NAB (including NPR) are lobbying to force all phones to include an FM
radio.

Since they can't say, "we want this to increase our ad revenue," they're using
the tried and true, "it's a must for national security" approach. They've
previously tried to get language added to Homeland Security bills that would
force phone manufacturers to include radios.

Besides, forcing phone manufacturers to include a radio won't save the radio
industry. Radio audiences are declining for the same reason broadcast TV
audiences are: it's a one-size fits all product on a strict schedule that's
overflowing with ads. It was in decline well before the smart phone.

[https://recodetech.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/arbitron-1980...](https://recodetech.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/arbitron-1980-2008.png)

~~~
kevinskii
There's a difference between including an FM radio and simply turning on a
pre-existing one via a software update, which apparently is possible on at
least some phone models.

And regardless of NPR's motives, their "it's needed for emergencies" argument
is a pretty good one.

~~~
wtallis
And selling hardware that's been crippled in some way always makes people
uncomfortable. Whether it's an FM tuner being turned off, tethering being
blocked, CPU features turned off, or whatever, manufacturing a working product
and then selling it in a less-working state is worrisome and shouldn't be
automatically considered acceptable. It's a strong indicator of a possible
market failure and a sure sign that the consumer's ownership rights have been
compromised.

~~~
cbhl
The hardware isn't crippled; you can root your phone and install an FM Radio
app yourself.

~~~
wtallis
In _some_ jurisdictions you can sometimes root your phone, if someone has put
the effort into defeating the technical obstacles put in place to enforce the
crippling. Other phones include a tuner that is disabled through hardware
means.

------
firloop
This article is misleading. While it is true that almost every smartphone has
an FM radio on the SoC, it's not true that it's _always_ up to the carriers to
enable the radio. Many unsupported phones are lacking the trace between the FM
input to the headset jack, meaning this issue can't be fixed in a software
update.

~~~
spectrum1234
"This article is misleading." ^Yes this is NPR's classic bias against
corporations.

~~~
wtallis
This is a corporation v corporation dispute: broadcasters against carriers and
streaming providers.

------
rwmj
My phone (Samsung Galaxy S3) has an FM radio. Unfortunately it's really
difficult to use because it uses the headphones as the antenna, which means
you have to literally stand in a certain way with your arms in a certain
position to hear anything. But anyway, it has an FM radio ...

------
leejoramo
Even if the chip supports FM, does the phone have an FM antenna?

I seem to remember that my old pre-MP3 devices used the headphone cable as the
antenna. Would it be easy to have good reception in a smartphone without using
a headphone cable?

Given how I use my smartphone using Bluetooth speakers for music and seldom
headphones, I doubt that the FM chip would work for me. (And if I did often
use headsets, I would get a Bluetooth one.)

~~~
tdicola
Yeah I don't think most phones have an FM antenna. All of the phones I've seen
that expose FM radio end up using the headphones that are plugged in as the
antenna. This means you have to use headphones, which is a bit of an annoyance
when you want to stream music to a bluetooth speaker or even just use the
phone's internal speaker.

~~~
ewzimm
You only have to have headphones plugged in. At least the Windows Phone radio
app has software switch for where you want the audio output to go. You can
plug in headphones and play on the speaker. If other radio apps don't have
this, it would be easy to add.

------
bfg
What's the downside of turning this on? From the article it just seems like it
would mean more capabilities, more consumer choice. Is the only "downside"
that it allows you to bypass cell networks when getting content?

~~~
cbhl
It only works if there are headphones attached, which confuses users.

Plus, Google or another company has to pay an engineer to write an app for it,
and test it against the hardware in the phones, etc. etc.

Usually this functionality is a byproduct of some random other chip on the
phone that is multifunction, usually Bluetooth. So people who don't use
Bluetooth get confused/upset/paranoid/tin foil hat when their FM Radio app
tells them that Bluetooth needs to be enabled to use it.

Many users who really want FM can already do it today, but it involves rooting
their phone and installing something like Cyanogenmod.

~~~
seba_dos1
>which confuses users

So users are why we can't have nice things.

Also, on Nokia N900 they simply didn't do an app at all. Lots of them were
quickly written by community and everyone was happy.

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Marcus10110
I would argue that analog FM radio has a pretty bad user experience, and I
completely understand a manufacturer not including it because of that. The
audio quality is usually poor, it's location and environment sensitive, and
the system for distributing and the RDS text is slow to update, and often
incomplete.

~~~
rcthompson
I generally agree with you that FM radio is not a very good user experience
(except during emergencies, when it suddenly becomes incredibly useful). But
that doesn't mean I get to tell other people whether they want it or not.
Enabling the FM radio tuner chip doesn't have to affect the user experience at
all for users who don't want to use it. The carrier doesn't have to include an
FM radio app pre-installed. Users who want FM radio can install an app for it.

------
sospep
As always, no mention of Blackberry, who do have FM radios on several of their
current models including Passport, Leap, Classic and Z30.

~~~
ceejayoz
For about the same reasons my blog doesn't show up in "check out this new
internet trend!" articles.

------
anomalous
I'm very surprised that many seem to simply accept the rhetoric of this story
and its talking points.

Exactly why are these chips being included and disabled, as opposed to not
including them in the first place? No one seems to be questioning this part.

Can anyone shed light on this? What is the back story here?

~~~
Dylan16807
It's one part of a multi function chip and there's no reason to special order
a version without FM.

Fun fact: at least for small orders you can get PICs cheaper than 555s.

------
aantthony
"NPR, along with the NAB, has been part of a lobbying effort to require this
free radio feature to be enabled."

I don't want an FM radio on my phone because the internet is a superior system
99% of the time. If Apple doesn't want to make an FM radio then they shouldn't
have to. It should be the people creating technology who decide the features,
not lobbyists using threats of force through government based on clearly
biased political interests.

------
bcg1
> "NPR, along with the NAB, has been part of a lobbying effort to require this
> free radio feature to be enabled"

Do we really need a law for this? If people wanted it they would just demand
it from manufacturers and/or carriers

> "Smulyan's lobbying has prompted the Indiana Senate to urge mobile carriers
> to activate the FM chip."

Total newspeak. Government bodies don't "urge", they force.

> "When the power grid is out, the only lifeline for the American public is
> having an FM tuner"

If you can't afford a battery powered radio, you can't afford a cell phone.
And BTW if the FM tuner is your "only lifeline", you might want to reevaluate
your preparedness for anything serious at all.

> "Every time you buy a phone, you've paid for that radio," Smulyan says.

Probably not true. In all likelihood the cost of the chip has no bearing on
the cost of your device, and even if it did it would probably cost more to
design separate chips (one with and one with the tuner) for separate markets,
and that cost would get passed on to consumers

> "What Americans really want is the ability to stream, download and customize
> music playlists to meet their personal preferences," Carpenter said,
> according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, "and that's not what the
> traditional FM radio offers."

What an arrogant asshole. His condescending presumptuous attitude aside,
neither of these options precludes the other and what consumers probably want
is every option at their disposal.

------
BorisMelnik
Am I going crazy? One day I woke up and could not find the Android app "FM
Radio" (even had a shortcut on my home screen.) Looked and looked and looked
and could not find it anywhere. Eventually I verified the apk was included in
the original install.

Did my provider (Sprint?) or my manufacturer remove this during an update? Did
Gooole remove this during an update?

Side note: anyone know of a good FM radio app on Android?

~~~
dethstar
I just checked after seeing this and I do have the FM Radio app. I'm not from
the states so, it wasn't google?

~~~
BorisMelnik
you wouldn't happen to have a link to the Google Play app?

------
Animats
I have a Cat B15 phone, which runs Android, and it has an enabled FM radio. If
I try to use it without headphones, I get a warning that without headphones as
an antenna, reception will be poor. It sometimes works in good reception
locations without an antenna, but it's a marginal FM radio. There's a "record
FM radio" option.

------
alukima
This made me realize I don't even own an FM radion anymore. I need to grab one
for my emergency kit.

------
soheil
Any idea how to activate it? Is it theoretically possible to unlock it by
jailbreaking your iPhone?

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a8da6b0c91d
On the devices that do have FM receivers such as many MP3 players and so
forth, why do they _never_ have an AM tuner?

There is a lot of stuff that people want to hear that only comes over AM, like
baseball games, for example.

~~~
unsignedint
AM broadcast requires a relatively larger antenna larger antenna to receive.
Though, most of portable AM radios use a bar shaped antenna inside. There are
several problems with it.

1) You will have to integrate that antenna somewhere in the device, and you
can't really make it "smaller" than a certain size. 2) Even if you could
integrate the antenna, it is directional; with a use case for mobile devices,
unless you are getting an exceptionally strong signal, you'll get varying
results out of it.

~~~
a8da6b0c91d
The headphone wire isn't enough? The cheapo AM portables everybody has been
plopping down next to the beer bucket since the 70s never seemed to have an
antenna longer than 2.5 ft. I understand the wavelength is longer and the
power is lower.

~~~
unsignedint
Those whip antennas are for FM broadcast. For the AM broadcast, the bar
antenna has a coil of wire wrapped around an iron bar to compensate for
requirement of a longer antenna to receive AM broadcast. It'd be actually size
prohibitive to make an antenna like FM radio, but designed for AM.

