Apple iPod remote radio: RDS Information in Setting Europe

hi Ulli!

just checking. do you mean you're not getting the radio text described in the "Does the radio on the iPod Radio Remote support RDS (Radio Data System)?" section of the radio remote FAQ?

iPod Radio Remote: Frequently Asked Questions

love, b

the radio remote can receive radio text - but only in the 'USA' setting

... and the FAQ says that you don't get that supported with the US setting. (unless i'm misreading the FAQ.)

hmmm. okay, let's try to get some feedback to Apple on this. let's try using the ipod technical feedback page:

iPod Feedback

does anyone have any hands-on experience with troubleshooting this issue? if so, any advice for Ulli?

love, b

Just got my Radio Remote yesterday and I also cannot receive RDS on the Europe setting. Apple really needs to go back to work on this product or release an update.


Here is part of an iLounge review:

This is the Radio Remote’s other obvious distinctive feature - support for RDS, a way that broadcasters can send limited text data to radios. RDS text varies from entirely absent to just a station’s name to a real-time display of artist and track names. Useful? A little. Cool? Definitely. But it’s also somewhat unreliable. The 5G iPod’s RDS feature doesn’t pick up all the text shown by our car stereo’s RDS display, and the iPod nano’s RDS seemed to pick up even less text than the 5G’s. (iLounge readers in Europe have already reported odd experiences when using the RDS feature overseas with nano.) From our perspective, this is not a critical part of the Radio Remote’s - or, actually, iPod’s - feature set, but it would be nice if it was more predictable and robust. We’re hoping for improvements in later firmware.

http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/reviews/comments/apple-computer-ipod-radio-remo te-ipod/




AMD64 X2 4200+ Windows XP Pro

AMD64 X2 4200+ Windows XP Pro

I have just received my Apple Radio Remote and I can confirm the RDS problem. I live in Spain, and with the "Europe" setting no RDS information is shown. However, if I select the "USA" setting, RDS works (station names). Unfortunately, with the 0,02 MHz step used in USA there are many local stations that can't be tuned.

This clearly appears to be a firmware problem; the Apple Radio Remote receives RDS data, but something is broken in the "Europe" setting.

iMac Core Duo Mac OS X (10.4.5)

Just tried 10 German radio stations between 88 Mhz and 98 Mhz. None of them displayed the RDS information.

No fix for this issue I would know of.

Same for me here in Switzerland, except that on some stations I get a text after a while (up to 30-45 seconds) and this text is not the one I see on my car radio for instance. This is really a bit of a nuisance.

Obviously this is a design issue that Apple should be aware of. Please report the problem using this form:

iPod Feedback

I have just sent my report. Several reports may catch more attention.

iMac Core Duo Mac OS X (10.4.5)

I really hope this is a firmware problem that can be solved with an iPod update software. Here in Santa Cruz, there are about 2 stations that display RDS text. If I switch to the US mode, it only receieves the station name. If I switch it to Europe mode, it receives station name and song title for one of the station. Now, that's unfortuate.

My radio remote does get RDS info on a lot of astions. However ther is quite a delay on some of them. I am using European settings and live in London UK

iPod Updater 2006-03-23

HP Windows XP

The new 1.2 firmware seems to fix this problem, at least for me. After updating my iPod 5G my stored stations dissapeared, but then I noticed that the radio zone was changed to Australia. I reselected Europe as radio zone, and the all my stations appeared again. And RDS PS (program service) seems to work fine: it is now displayed top left. If the station send RDS RT (radio text), it is displayed in the dial field.

I have 1.2 update as well, but no RDS information in UK. also , an auto tune feature will be nice 🙂

Version 1.3 is on air... and still no fix at all.

I wonder... Do they intend to fix it, in a forthcoming version?

Does someone (Technician from APPLE) reads all these complaints about RDS on radio-remote?