# Why no traditional media in modern handhelds? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 12, 2010, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-traditional-media-in-modern-handhelds/542951 "2010-06-12T21:07:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2010, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-traditional-media-in-modern-handhelds/542951/1 "2010-06-12T21:07:05Z")
AM/FM (and to some extent TV audio) were standard in portable cassette and CD players. They were even intdgrated into my last traditional TVs. Why aren’t over-the-air AM/FM/TV/DTV standard on current media players and smart phones? ---
**Author:** ![Silver\_Tyger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/fbc32d/32.png) [@Silver\_Tyger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_Tyger)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2010, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-traditional-media-in-modern-handhelds/542951/2 "2010-06-12T21:13:21Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > AM/FM (and to some extent TV audio) were standard in portable cassette and CD players. They were even intdgrated into my last traditional TVs. Why aren’t over-the-air AM/FM/TV/DTV standard on current media players and smart phones? I don’t know about all of them, but my MP3 player will pick up FM. ---
**Author:** ![J\_Cubed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c6cbf5/32.png) [@J\_Cubed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/J_Cubed)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2010, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-traditional-media-in-modern-handhelds/542951/3 "2010-06-12T21:32:10Z")
My Nokia E71 smartphone can tune FM if I plug in headphones (the wire serves as the antenna). I’ve never used it. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2010, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-traditional-media-in-modern-handhelds/542951/4 "2010-06-12T21:50:16Z")
FM is common in MP3 players. to have a functioning multiband radio takes space for components and an antenna is needed. AM would take a lot of space. DTV doesn’t work well if not stationary and large antenna. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2010, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-traditional-media-in-modern-handhelds/542951/5 "2010-06-12T22:32:44Z")
I have a handheld DTV receiver. However, it doesn’t work unless its stationary, which sort of defeats the purpose of having a handheld unit. ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2010, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-traditional-media-in-modern-handhelds/542951/6 "2010-06-12T22:43:55Z")
Supposedly the iPhone \*can \*receive FM, but they’ve never activated that part of the hardware. Ah, here’s a [link](http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Apple-iPhone-iPod-FM-Receiver,news-4855.html). I wish they’d unlock it. I’m not sure how often I’d use it, but more is always better, right? I imagine they’re still trying to find a way to make money off of it- like a way for us to hit a button and immediately buy a song we’re listening to on the radio. ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2010, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-traditional-media-in-modern-handhelds/542951/7 "2010-06-12T23:34:49Z")
Another thing is that a modern phone can stream thousands of radio stations. Adding in an FM receiver isn’t adding that much more value. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2010, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-traditional-media-in-modern-handhelds/542951/8 "2010-06-14T09:16:40Z")
no longer empty and frantic like a cat tied to a stick ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2010, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-traditional-media-in-modern-handhelds/542951/9 "2010-06-14T11:51:59Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#): > > no longer empty and frantic > like a cat > tied to a stick Mr. Kapowzler, you have something to share with the class? Also, the XM radio in my car picks up AM/FM as well, but I never use it. ---
**Author:** ![lazybratsche](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ba8739/32.png) [@lazybratsche](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lazybratsche)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2010, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-traditional-media-in-modern-handhelds/542951/10 "2010-06-14T13:11:36Z")
Basically each of those needs a different sort of antenna. FM is easy, since it turns out that headphone wires are a satisfactory antenna. Compact AM or UHF TV antennas are loops that are too large to pack in a pocketable device. Many UHF antennas are also fairly directional, so you’d have to keep a consistent orientation as you travel around. The circuitry is compact and pretty cheap in each case, but if you wanted to receive all of those signals while walking around you’d need to wear an array of antennas. ---
**Author:** ![cantara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6f9a4e/32.png) [@cantara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cantara)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2010, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-traditional-media-in-modern-handhelds/542951/11 "2010-06-14T13:46:38Z")
> [@Lightnin](#): > > Supposedly the iPhone \*can \*receive FM, but they’ve never activated that part of the hardware. Ah, here’s a [link](http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Apple-iPhone-iPod-FM-Receiver,news-4855.html). > > I wish they’d unlock it. I’m not sure how often I’d use it, but more is always better, right? I imagine they’re still trying to find a way to make money off of it- like a way for us to hit a button and immediately buy a song we’re listening to on the radio. [Aside] There is this functionality available…kind of (not FM). Our car stereo has HDRadio (digital) which displays the song name as it is playing. There is a button called ‘TAG’ that will save the song name/artist to your iPod and automatically search for it the next time you hook your iPod up to iTunes. We never use it, 1. it slows down the performance when you hook up your iPod since it is downloading stuff (slowly), 2. we don’t have HDRadio in Canada [/aside] ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2012, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-traditional-media-in-modern-handhelds/542951/12 "2012-06-06T16:37:03Z")
I’m revising this thread because I just heard Jeff Smulyan, the head of Emmis Communications, say that every Iphone already has an FM chipset in it, but it’s just not activated. What is up with that? Why doesn’t Apple allow me to utilize a function that’s already available, free, and doesn’t use internet data transfer? ---
**Author:** ![Kevbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@Kevbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kevbo)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2012, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-traditional-media-in-modern-handhelds/542951/13 "2012-06-06T16:50:51Z")
Most radio receivers include oscillators (local oscillators, LO) used to shift the incoming signal frequency for more convenient or effective filtering. The LO oscillator of one receiver may cause interference to another, if they are in close proximity. This is why they don’t want you using a radio receiver on an airplane. It can be difficult to allow two receivers to operate in the same package if they are not carefully designed not to interfere with each other. Interference may manifest as just decreased sensitivity, rather than obvious squealing or reception of the wrong signal. It may come as a surprise, but smart phones are intended to be phones first and foremost. This means they need to be able to receive the cell signal at all times in order to receive incoming calls. 3G/4G data is the same signal as the phone part uses, so this does not result in making the the phone less able to receive calls. ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2012, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-traditional-media-in-modern-handhelds/542951/14 "2012-06-06T17:00:06Z")
> [@Kevbo](#): > > Most radio receivers include oscillators (local oscillators, LO) used to shift the incoming signal frequency for more convenient or effective filtering. The LO oscillator of one receiver may cause interference to another, if they are in close proximity. This is why they don’t want you using a radio receiver on an airplane. It can be difficult to allow two receivers to operate in the same package if they are not carefully designed not to interfere with each other. Interference may manifest as just decreased sensitivity, rather than obvious squealing or reception of the wrong signal. It may come as a surprise, but smart phones are intended to be phones first and foremost. This means they need to be able to receive the cell signal at all times in order to receive incoming calls. 3G/4G data is the same signal as the phone part uses, so this does not result in making the the phone less able to receive calls. Okay, so why do all modern smartphones have wi-fi transceivers then? Is it just that it’s too useful to do without, or is there something about the spectrum differences that means that wifi would create less interference for 3G than FM radio would? ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2012, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-traditional-media-in-modern-handhelds/542951/15 "2012-06-06T17:09:26Z")
It is a bit of a misunderstanding about the chipset. Not so much a chipset as a single chip. The iPhone has a multiband communications chip, a Broadcom BCM4329 that is responsible for WiFi, Bluetooth, and also has an FM receiver. Apple almost certainly simply don’t provide an antenna connection to the FM receiver. Doing so would add cost and complexity to the design - as was noted earlier in the thread the typical way of providing an FM antenna is to use the headphones. This needs special design effort for the headphone socket, and if you put the iPhone in a dock, the FM won’t work anyway. The Broadcom chip is the cheapest they make, so Apple probably have no choice in the matter, they get the FM receiver on the chip whether they want it or not. In order to make it work they would have to add additional hardware. It isn’t a case that they designed an FM receiver into the iPhone and then decided not to activate it. There is no software patch to make it work. It needs actual additional hardware. ---
**Author:** ![Fubaya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@Fubaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fubaya)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2012, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-traditional-media-in-modern-handhelds/542951/16 "2012-06-06T23:10:22Z")
> [@Francis\_Vaughan](#): > > It is a bit of a misunderstanding about the chipset. Not so much a chipset as a single chip. The iPhone has a multiband communications chip, a Broadcom BCM4329 that is responsible for WiFi, Bluetooth, and also has an FM receiver. Apple almost certainly simply don’t provide an antenna connection to the FM receiver. Doing so would add cost and complexity to the design - as was noted earlier in the thread the typical way of providing an FM antenna is to use the headphones. This needs special design effort for the headphone socket, and if you put the iPhone in a dock, the FM won’t work anyway. The Broadcom chip is the cheapest they make, so Apple probably have no choice in the matter, they get the FM receiver on the chip whether they want it or not. In order to make it work they would have to add additional hardware. It isn’t a case that they designed an FM receiver into the iPhone and then decided not to activate it. There is no software patch to make it work. It needs actual additional hardware. It’s shouldn’t be that hard. According to the people who tried to get it to work for my current phone, the Galaxy Nexus, there are a couple pins on the chip that enable FM and one tiny wire to connect the chip to the jack. Unfortunately, some phones have FM enabled but no connection to the jack. Some Android phones have both and FM does work. The HTC Nexus One used that same BCM4329 chip and all it took was the right software to turn it on. ---
**Author:** ![voltaire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voltaire/32/313_2.png) [@voltaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voltaire)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2012, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-traditional-media-in-modern-handhelds/542951/17 "2012-06-06T23:37:31Z")
[Some people are proposing](http://www.tvnewscheck.com/article/41179/homeland-security-depends-on-broadcast) that cell phones [be required by law](http://benton.org/node/34017) to include FM/DTV reception for the purposes of emergency broadcasts in times where broadband communication typically becomes overwhelmed. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2012, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-traditional-media-in-modern-handhelds/542951/18 "2012-06-06T23:45:45Z")
> [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](#): > > Another thing is that a modern phone can stream thousands of radio stations. Adding in an FM receiver isn’t adding that much more value. Erm, have you ever tried streaming radio (over 3G) when you’re outside WiFi range? Your monthly data allowance will disappear PDQ. I have 500MB monthly data. Listening to the radio on one 40-miinute train journey used up almost 10% of that when I tried it the other week. ---
**Author:** ![Fubaya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@Fubaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fubaya)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2012, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-traditional-media-in-modern-handhelds/542951/19 "2012-06-07T02:07:31Z")
> [@voltaire](#): > > [Some people are proposing](http://www.tvnewscheck.com/article/41179/homeland-security-depends-on-broadcast) that cell phones [be required by law](http://benton.org/node/34017) to include FM/DTV reception for the purposes of emergency broadcasts in times where broadband communication typically becomes overwhelmed. They actually [just started](http://whnt.com/2012/05/15/wireless-weather-alert-system-coming-to-cell-phones/) rolling out a system for emergency notifications to cell phones which may make them forget about FM/DTV for a while. I’d still like to see FM though, it’s simple and useful. ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2012, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-traditional-media-in-modern-handhelds/542951/20 "2012-06-07T02:46:52Z")
It is interesting that Apple are not alone in not enabling the FM receiver in the Broadcom chip. It would be useful see how good the final result is when it is enabled. One reason companies don’t enable it, is that it simply might not be all that good, or that getting it to work well requires compromises or additional work elsewhere in the system design. There is so much stuff going on inside a smartphone that getting clean FM reception and audio may be a bit of pain. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-traditional-media-in-modern-handhelds/542951.md?page=2)