Nothing has changed from those very old posts that you may have seen. It isn't just a matter of turning on the FM receiver in the radio chip. It would require a hardware change, because there's no FM antenna in the iPhone either, and FM reception requires a 30 inch antenna as a minimum. Portable devices that support FM radio generally use the headset cord as the antenna. That's fine if you use wired headphones, but I haven't since I got my first iPhone almost 8 years ago; I use BlueTooth headsets exclusively. But even if you wanted to use a wired headset just to listen to FM you couldn't, because there's no connection inside the phone between the FM receiver circuit in the universal radio chip and the headphone terminals. So some future iPhone could provide FM, but only to users who choose to use wired headphones, and only if Apple could be convinced there was a benefit. I note that none of these technical details were mentioned in the links you posted.
You would also have to give up the sound quality you have come to expect from iPods, iPhones and streaming media; FM bandwidth and sound quality is really terrible when compared with CDs, MP3s, iTunes music or streaming content. I've done some tests myself, comparing the sound from an FM music station with a stream from the same station. I keep everything else controlled; the sound plays through my stereo, using its high end FM tuner, and the stream plays through AirPlay from my iPhone. The difference is night and day. And that's just the quality of the music, ignoring the fade-in, fade-out, and static on the FM signal.
If you really want FM you can buy (wired) headsets that have a built in FM radio and can also be used with your iPhone. That way you don't have to wait for Apple. You can also buy portable FM radios for about $10. So the argument that it is needed for an emergency when other communications fail is bogus.
