FM Radio

According to Wired magazine (and others), the feature is the Qualcom chipset used by iPhones and that enables FM reception is switched off (by Apple).

My Moto-G phone using Android is able to receive FM (with the headphone wire as antennae). But all one can do with IOS is download streaming audio - not over the air FM signals.

I am somewhat surprised that Apple is so retro on this matter.

BTW, at least some iPods can receive FM over the air signals, so it's not a programming issue...

Will this never die?! Apple has not "switched off" FM. There are no connections to the FM pins in the Qualcom chip. No place to connect an antenna. No connection to the audio out. No connection to the tuning signal lines. It has nothing to do with it being switched off. I suggest reading Dalton Trumbo's "Johnny Got His Gun" for some enlightenment.

Just proving again that nothing is too difficult for the person who doesn't have to do it. Or, to quote President Dwight D. Eisenhower (who started life as a farmer); "Farming is easy - if you are 1,000 miles from a cornfield, and your plow is a pencil."

Here is what you quoted:

Many smartphones sold today, including iPhones, have an FM receiver built into the LTE modem that would allow people to listen to FM radio over the air; however, many carriers and phone makers have not enabled the functionality, forcing users to use an app to stream FM radio over Wi-Fi or cellular data.

So what does many carriers and phone makers have not enabled the functionality actually mean? You are assuming that it means flipping a switch and, as if by magic, it could suddenly receive FM signals. I've explained what "enabling that functionality" actually means in my previous post. Read my post again. But to make it abundantly clear, here is what "enabling that functionality" actually means:

• Provide a way to connect an antenna to the antenna pin on the chip (it isn't there on the logic board right now)
• Provide connections to the 3 audio output pins on the chip (they don't go anywhere right now)
• Provide connections to the 8 tuning pins on the chip (they don't go anywhere right now)
• Require owners to only use wired headphones. No Bluetooth allowed.

So essentially Apple would have to completely redesign the main logic board, and add circuitry to control all of those new connections. And all for what? To receive really poor quality FM signals that have a range of 10 miles, fade in and out, can't be used with Bluetooth headsets. What is the benefit? Before you answer, keep in mind that after the devastation of Hurricane Harvey in Houston radio stations went off the air, but cellular coverage did not. Which is really more important?

well, let's just see why that is:

MacRumours quotes the head of the FCC (obviously a stooge and pencil pusher):

FCC chairman Ajit Pai has advocated for the activation of FM radio receivers built into nearly every smartphone, as part of opening remarks he made at the Future of Radio and Audio Symposium in Washington D.C. yesterday.

Many smartphones sold today, including iPhones, have an FM receiver built into the LTE modem that would allow people to listen to FM radio over the air; however, many carriers and phone makers have not enabled the functionality, forcing users to use an app to stream FM radio over Wi-Fi or cellular data.

Pai cited a NAB study that found only 44% of the top-selling smartphones in the United States had activated FM receivers as of last year. The vast majority—94%—of the non-activated smartphones are iPhones, according to the study.

and according to Apple's User Manual for the iPod nano v6 (Chapter 6) - note wired headphones function as an aerial:

Listening to FM radio

iPod nano uses the earphone or headphone cord as an antenna, so you must connect earphones or headphones to iPod nano in order to receive a radio signal.

When you tune to a station that supports RDS (Radio Data System), the song title, artist name, and station information appear in the display.

clear enough for you?

So an attorney who happens to head a federal government agency (Mr. Pai has no engineering background at all) speaking at an event held by The world broadcastering unions, a group with strong lobby efforts in Washington to protect their industry, says we all need to have FM radios on our smart phones, and this somehow is a valid mandate to make device manufacturers provide this feature? I’m not seeing the compelling argument here.

Other than the fact that you want it, what would motivate Apple to redo the innards of the iPhone to activate the FM chip? Part of the reason Apple has moved to smaller ports and eliminating ports is because there is very little room on the inside of an iPhone. Connecting the FM receiver to a port the could be used to plug an antenna into would take up precious space. Where is the benefit to Apple? It doesn't seem likely that it will increase sales.

Cof_K wrote:

Q: Gee, does the FCC know how mobile phones are built and how they function?

A: Why yes, yes they do.

(Hint: check the stamp on the case).

Engineers at the FCC might. I guarantee Pia does not. He’s a career government administrator and lawyer. He was pandering to an industry group that is intensely lobbying the Federal Goernment to protect their industry in the face of decline in an era of internet media distribution. Your quoted remarks by him are a political statement, not an engineering one.

Pia is (last check) the head of the agency, and so advised by engineers and many others. His own intimate knowledge of engineering is not relevant. (Likewise, Steve Jobs was neither an engineer nor a programmer.)

The point remains that technically, the problem - FM band radio reception – is trivial; as demonstrated by its implementation elsewhere.

Lawrence Finch wrote:

So essentially Apple would have to completely redesign the main logic board, and add circuitry to control all of those new connections.

Certainly an interesting definition of trivial.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/radio-tuner-free/id591357891?mt=8

Here's a free tuner you can download from the App Store.

No iphone is or has ever been capable of receiving over the air FM broadcasts. Live streaming over the internet via an App is the only way to listen to radio broadcasts on an iPhone or iPad.

While the chipset used in iPhone's may technical support FM reception, that functionality is not enabled at all, and cannot be enabled on any iPhone.

That's not a tuner; it's an app to receive the Internet streams of FM stations that have them. Nothing wrong with it; the audio quality is much better than you can get from FM over the air. But it doesn't use the FM capability of the RF chip in the phone.

The android phones that work with an app work the same way as the iPhone apps; they receive streams over the Internet from the FM stations that provide them. It's how I listen to FM on my iPhone. It has a huge advantage over "real" FM - I can listen to an FM station anywhere in the world. Not just within 20 miles of the transmitter. If I'm driving cross country I can listen to the same station all day, not just for the 15 minutes I'm in range of the transmitter.

The RF chip can receive FM signals, but only if they get to the chip. To do that it needs an FM antenna connection and an antenna. There is no connection to the antenna input to the chip in an iPhone, and no connection to the FM tuner connections and FM display connections in the chip. So without a total redesign of the iPhone there is no way to make the FM tuner work. In addition, an FM antenna is 30 inches long, so portable FM radios use the headset cord. It won't work with a Bluetooth headset.

Considering that you can buy a wired headset that has a built in FM radio for about $10, what's the big deal?