FCC Chief Tells Apple To Turn on iPhone's FM Radio Chip (cnet.com)

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai pushed Apple on Friday to activate the FM radio chips in the iPhone. From a report: In the wake of three major hurricanes that have wiped out communications for millions of people over the past month, Pai issued a statement urging Apple, one of the largest makers of cellphones in the US, to "reconsider its position, given the devastation wrought by Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria." FM radios that are already included in every phone could be used to access "life-saving information" during disasters, he said. For years the majority of smartphones sold in the US have included FM radios, but most of them have been turned off so that you couldn't use the function. Why? Mobile customers would be a lot less likely to subscribe to streaming music services if they could just listen to traditional, free broadcast radio. This incentive is especially true for Apple, which has a streaming music service. Apple said in a statement: "iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 models do not have FM radio chips in them nor do they have antennas designed to support FM signals, so it is not possible to enable FM reception in these products."

Comments

Television?

[CohibaVancouver]

When I was in Korea a few years back I was intrigued to see everyone on the subway watching OTA broadcast TV on their phones. This wasn't "streaming" video coming in over their data plan - The phones and tablets had antennas that extended from them and they were watching broadcast TV.

Re:tell them ALL to do it

[fahrbot-bot]

Tell Samsung, Tell Pixel, Tell Motorola, tell ALL the smartphone manufactures to turn on the FM radio chip so i can at least get local broadcast FM radio music, news and weather

Many of those devices already to have their FM radios enabled, but lack software to drive them. I use the free NextRadio app on my Kyocera Hydro Vibe and it works great. It uses the headphone wire as an antenna, so they (or a speaker) must be plugged it, but you can also output through the built-in speaker.

Here's the official list of supported devices. Note that my device wasn't listed when I first installed the app, but it worked anyway. I sent some feed back telling them it worked and my device is now listed.