Your Phone Has an FM Chip. So Why Can’t You Listen to the Radio? • Hacker News Board

Re: Your Phone Has an FM Chip. So Why Can’t You Listen to the Radio?

#281

Post by gtk40 » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 3:34 PM UTC

alsetmusic wrote: post #53

Frondo wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny, I really like listening to a number of local stations for the variety of music I get introduced to; but somehow, the fact that there is a real person curating it makes me enjoy it. Listening to spotify, it doesn't do it for me. Something about having someone come on, make a little human conversation, that's part of the experience for me. Algorithms don't cut it.

It's strange to me to read a positive comment about terrestrial radio broadcast amid so many complaints about ad blocking on the web. I stopped listening to radio many years ago and now I have an irrational resentment when I hear car stereos blasting pointless, noisy ads at traffic stops. I always wonder what allows people to mentally tune them out rather than decreasing the volume until music resumes. This is in no…

I listen to music on the radio. I have 5 stations I switch between on my commute, and usually at least one is playing music. As soon as it goes to talking, I quickly thumb through (using a steering wheel control) to a new station. I never hit ads (several stations do long periods of continuous songs during my commute hours too which makes it easier).

Re: Your Phone Has an FM Chip. So Why Can’t You Listen to the Radio?

#282

Post by matwood » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 3:34 PM UTC

mason240 wrote: post #277

WalterBright wrote: post #19

I just bought an internet radio for my stereo (yes, I'm that old, I have a stereo). I was surprised to discover it also had a wire in the box that turned out to be an FM antenna. I thought with internet radio, who needs an FM tuner? (all the local stations have streaming URLs) Turns out I actually like it. It's handy when the internet fails, or when you're nearing data caps, or just want to run it all day without int…

FM radio is the only reliable way to listen to broadcasts of local sports.

And in some places AM. I often listen to AM sports talk radio for light hearted entertainment, and when a commercial comes on switch over to a Bloomberg stream. If both are on a long commercial break (like the end/start of an hour), I switch to Google music and rarely switch back. Commercials lose me completely for the rest of my drive.

Re: Your Phone Has an FM Chip. So Why Can’t You Listen to the Radio?

#283

Post by dspillett » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 3:41 PM UTC

lostlogin wrote: post #110

culturestate wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think iMessage proved that Apple could give a damn what the carriers want.

This may be a failing of mine or a regional thing, but what does this comment mean? I read it literally as saying that Apple has done what carriers want and has made iMessage to suit carriers. I suspect that this is the opposite of what is intended though, as iMessage disempowers carriers imho. How does culturestate's comment work?

It is a bit of colloquial American English where they have dropped the negative but still use the phrase in the same context. It is the same problem with "I could care less" when what the speaker actually means is "I couldn't care less".

Re: Your Phone Has an FM Chip. So Why Can’t You Listen to the Radio?

#284

Post by wang_li » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 3:44 PM UTC

tgarma1234 wrote: post #203

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's handy when the internet fails, or when you're nearing data caps, or just want to run it all day without interfering with download speeds So basically it's useful if you have really shitty internet.

I have AT&T and to be honest I would rather listen to NPR on the radio rather than streaming/using my data. My data rolls over. So wasting it on something I could get for free anyway doesn't seem fair.

There's a certain retardedness to streaming a live radio station over the internet when you have an actual radio available and are in the broadcast area of the station.

Re: Your Phone Has an FM Chip. So Why Can’t You Listen to the Radio?

#285

Post by macintux » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 3:54 PM UTC

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #273

hx87 wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Older junk cars" almost always have a single- or double-DIN form for their radios, and aftermarket radios are available for ~$50, so it's not like they can't get other forms of audio.

Even if you only have to buy a plug-n-play harness and insert a coat hanger into a hole to get the old radio out DIYing something like that scares most people and a $50 radio install will probably cost $50 or more before the200% markup on the adapter harness the shop bought on Amazon for $5-$15. Just figuring out how to use typical automotive connectors is a major task for someone who's never done it. It's a low prio…

> OEM radios tend to have pretty good ergonomics anyway.

I'm appalled at the UI for radios these days. Obviously feature overload has a lot to do with it; I wish someone would make opinionated car stereos like Apple does for other consumer tech. "You don't want this feature because the tradeoff is more complexity."

Re: Your Phone Has an FM Chip. So Why Can’t You Listen to the Radio?

#286

Post by nitrogen » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 4:02 PM UTC

macintux wrote: post #285

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you only have to buy a plug-n-play harness and insert a coat hanger into a hole to get the old radio out DIYing something like that scares most people and a $50 radio install will probably cost $50 or more before the200% markup on the adapter harness the shop bought on Amazon for $5-$15. Just figuring out how to use typical automotive connectors is a major task for someone who's never done it. It's a low prio…

> OEM radios tend to have pretty good ergonomics anyway. I'm appalled at the UI for radios these days. Obviously feature overload has a lot to do with it; I wish someone would make opinionated car stereos like Apple does for other consumer tech. "You don't want this feature because the tradeoff is more complexity."

I'd rather have, "We know some of you want this feature so we spent considerable time giving it to you without the complexity."

Re: Your Phone Has an FM Chip. So Why Can’t You Listen to the Radio?

#287

Post by Frondo » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 4:09 PM UTC

forgetsusername wrote: post #237

Frondo wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny, I really like listening to a number of local stations for the variety of music I get introduced to; but somehow, the fact that there is a real person curating it makes me enjoy it. Listening to spotify, it doesn't do it for me. Something about having someone come on, make a little human conversation, that's part of the experience for me. Algorithms don't cut it.

> the fact that there is a real person curating it makes me enjoy it. You're lucky, I suppose. Around here every radio station is owned by the same media conglomerate, so we have 4 or 5 stations all playing the same generic top 40 music (with a slight variance by genre). Outside of the CBC, terrestrial radio, for the most part, sucks.

Yeah, I think I am. When I'm cooking some elaborate meal, I'll put on the jazz station. I don't enjoy every song, but I do like feeling that sense of connection to the guy in the booth several miles away. It's a sense of intimacy.

But I can also totally see how, if you really had nothing but 4 or 5 clearchannel stations, that radio would have nothing for you.

Re: Your Phone Has an FM Chip. So Why Can’t You Listen to the Radio?

#288

Post by DigitalJack » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 4:19 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #279

DigitalJack wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's super annoying but it has to do with misunderstandings and mispronunciations finding their way into common language. Another terrible one is "I could care less" vs "I couldn't care less." Both mean the same thing in the common language, but if I hear someone say the "could" version, they lose a lot of respect in my eyes. Languages evolve, and mostly it irritates me. I hate that the English Dictionaries used to b…

Are you also irritated by all the changes that happened before you were born, or is it just the new ones that bug you? Dictionaries as an authoritative source really just means that they reflect older common usage. It just makes them slow, not somehow better.

So the "Urban Dictionary" should really be called the "Fast Dictionary."

Re: Your Phone Has an FM Chip. So Why Can’t You Listen to the Radio?

#289

Post by kelvin0 » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 4:23 PM UTC

alsetmusic wrote: post #53

Frondo wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny, I really like listening to a number of local stations for the variety of music I get introduced to; but somehow, the fact that there is a real person curating it makes me enjoy it. Listening to spotify, it doesn't do it for me. Something about having someone come on, make a little human conversation, that's part of the experience for me. Algorithms don't cut it.

It's strange to me to read a positive comment about terrestrial radio broadcast amid so many complaints about ad blocking on the web. I stopped listening to radio many years ago and now I have an irrational resentment when I hear car stereos blasting pointless, noisy ads at traffic stops. I always wonder what allows people to mentally tune them out rather than decreasing the volume until music resumes. This is in no…

If someone comes out with AdBlocker 'plugin' for my in car radio, I am sold ... Cannot stand radio ads.

Re: Your Phone Has an FM Chip. So Why Can’t You Listen to the Radio?

#290

Post by mikestew » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 4:24 PM UTC

orbitur wrote: post #259

rplst8 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I suppose long term FM is dead, but meanwhile it has its uses. If true, this is really unfortunate. I've written about this before, but FM is a really great technology, and in a lot of ways it's only suffering because of the content. The sound quality of digital "equivalents" (XM Radio, HD Radio, Internet Radio, etc.) doesn't even come close to a clear FM station. Not to mention there are millions of vintage radios…

As an aside, I got a free SiriusXM trial with my new car, and the sound quality is terrible compared to FM. I was honestly reminded of the MP3s I got from Kazaa and burned to a CD in 2003, you can hear the aggressive compression.

It's why I dumped Sirius a while back. When it started, Sirius had really good quality. IIRC, I'd put it up there with CDs. As they added more and more, the quality just kept going down and down. Between the nosedive in quality and the increasing number of ads on non-music channels, I didn't see $12/month in value. IOW, satellite radio went through the exact same cycle as cable TV.