I'd bet good money that many phones have an FM radio tuner that isn't usable only because they follow one misguided company and won't make a headphone jack available.
Why can’t the Android manufacturers just be accountable by themselves?
Otherwise if that's the drum you want to beat, android makers were the first to push bigger and bigger screens ("phablets") and opened the door for Apple to also inflate it's devices, to the point where 6" is considered "small" by today's standard.
It’s irrelevant to Android phones whether Apple made the choice first or how they did it. Android manufacturers are able to be accountable for their own decisions.
it’s even more irrelevant that Android phones had larger screens first, unless people on the Apple side are blaming Android manufacturers for the push to larger screens.
I would be that person, but the iPhone mini showed the market just isn't there for it :(
Then of course Google just went bigger for their garbage 5G variant of it which just trashed battery life, and all subsequent phones doing ML with the Tensor processor also went bigger.
It makes me think it's not a matter of commercial success, or even if there's a market for it. The issue is probably the massive incentives on the maker side to push a bigger battery to deal with more computation and push the device price upper to get better margins.
I don't see how the two are exclusive.
In fact your own reply starts of with blaming solely Apple. Your only mention of Android is how they did bigger screens first.
This sub-thread started about Apple, addressing it first feels logical to me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41762229
My other response was enterely focused on Google: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4177226
It seems like something that ought to be technically doable, but perhaps the market isn't there compared to just selling standalone little radio-things?
I guess it could make sense if the phone is driving your wireless earbuds or you want to change stations using Siri, but yeah other than that, I dunno.
It was true at one point - I owned at least one phone with a disabled FM radio.
Some cursory checks on my current phone suggest it's got one (just doesn't work for some reason with FM Tuner apps).
But, there are folks complaining about how Samsung broke FM tuners with an update on this phone a few years back. Who knows what that is about.
The story goes that analog radio receivers are built-in to nearly every smartphone, but most lack the app or drivers to access them.
I imagine adding analog FM radio isn't a major selling point on a phone where you can already stream the digital feeds from most FM stations – not to mention Spotify, Youtube, Apple Music, etc.
That will use up your data.
By contrast FM radio is free, and we have some bloody good BBC radio stations in blighty.
https://ipodwiki.com/wiki/IPod_Radio_Remote
Shows Apple can do FM if they put their mind to it.
RIP iPod Classic (2007-2014).
Where do you live that you're worried about data? Is this an American thing?
I've lived in Asia and Europe and data is so cheap and plentiful that I'm never changing my behaviour to save a few MBs.
Or are you not worried about data but you're trying hard to make a case for this FM antenna that no one wants in their phones?
At least start your sentences with a capital letter, they might at least have the veneer of being worthwhile to read.
American culture leans “against the feds”, it really is wackamole trying to shut them down, on the other hand it drives more subscriptions to satelite radio which is good for the gdp, so win win.
Hell I believe this is even the case in London, just not as extreme.
Those pirate radio stations are still out there just with a low power license and a sheen of legitimacy now.
I’m the one who said it’s weird we single out cars to have AM radios, but my wife actually listens to live sports on AM during her work commute. If I had to pick exactly one of FM or AM to have in our car, it’d be AM without a second thought.
Unfortunately my antenna can't pick up the FM signal, and iPlayer is geo-blocked, but... I do seem to be able to stream some BBC radio stations and program[me]s via the magic of the internets.
(That might just be a strategic device by the incumbent public transmitter operator though – they have ubiquitous FM coverage, which helps avoid competing programs on DAB out by decreasing the utility of buying a DAB receiver.)
On the other hand, everyone can get their own personal "radio station" via streaming...