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?
The hidden FM radio in your pocket and why you can't use it
21–30 of 112 posts
Re: The hidden FM radio in your pocket and why you can't use it
#22Am 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?
Re: The hidden FM radio in your pocket and why you can't use it
#23But 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.
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.
Re: The hidden FM radio in your pocket and why you can't use it
#24Even 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…
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.
Re: The hidden FM radio in your pocket and why you can't use it
#25Am 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 And…
SpiritF in the F-Droid repo, although it says you'll need root.
Re: The hidden FM radio in your pocket and why you can't use it
#26I 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.
Re: The hidden FM radio in your pocket and why you can't use it
#27But 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.
I was so irritated that I sent a polite but snippy email to his lobbying agency, before deciding it would be more effective to repost it here (it was posted earlier today but largely ignored).
No, I don't think they feel embarrassed at all. This the human-level equivalent of promulgating botnets, and involves a similar principle - that if people are too passive to harden their systems against such obviously lame exploits, then they deserve whatever they get. I find this an obnoxious argument, which is why I have so little sympathy for the 'black hat hackers help people improve security' argument sometimes floated here on HN.
I actually think it's true that most people are ignorant or possibly even stupid, and that they won't adopt good security (or critical thinking) practices until they've learned the hard way - by being exploited for someone else's gain. But going from observing this fact to actively leveraging it is precisely the point at which one is making the world a worse place.
/GRAR
Re: The hidden FM radio in your pocket and why you can't use it
#28What'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?
If you can get FM radio on your phone, you'll buy fewer iTunes.
Re: The hidden FM radio in your pocket and why you can't use it
#29Even 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…
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.
As I expected. So Apple and other hardware makers are likely not wanting to ship a feature that will feel flawed to many people.
I guess, they could have the FM app tell people that they need to plug in the correct type of headphone for this feature.
Re: The hidden FM radio in your pocket and why you can't use it
#30As always, no mention of Blackberry, who do have FM radios on several of their current models including Passport, Leap, Classic and Z30.