Buh-bye FM Radio

[Undertoad]

You miss hearing five minutes of ads in a row?

There is FM on the chip in the iPhone, it turns out; but it's not switched on because A) engineering time would have to be spent to make it work right and not cause interference to other systems, and B) FM needs a different longer antenna which the iPhone doesn't actually have.

The broadcasters have fought to try to turn FM on by law; their argument is that cell services can be overwhelmed in an emergency. This is true except that it isn't; providers can manage traffic, and SMS, the most important emergency service, isn't so overwhelmed. And there is no time in an emergency when people will remember that there is an FM radio in their phone. (Car, yes; phone, no.)

If you want to listen to five minutes of ads on your iPhone you can do it via streaming radio apps. I recommend you do not and use Spotify and Pandora and Pocket Casts and Apple Music and such instead.