iPhone radio

robhon

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Mar 17, 2007
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Another way to think about this is, Apple, like the famous Wayne Gretski quote, "skates to where the puck is going to be." FM radio is slowly getting usurped by other technologies. (In fact, the government wants it that way to free up more frequencies for other purposes.) Apple tends to be the first in the computer industry to drop older technologies. Apple dropped floppies before anyone else, if I remember correctly. I bet they're going to drop hard drives in favor of high volume flash memory with in the next year or two, as the price of that comes down. ESPECIALLY given the extremely limited space inside an iPhone, I don't thing you'll EVER see an FM receiver inside.

I mean, the thing already has cellular, wifi and bluetooth. Do we really need for radios in one device?
 

khunlyon

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Another way to think about this is, Apple, like the famous Wayne Gretski quote, "skates to where the puck is going to be." FM radio is slowly getting usurped by other technologies. (In fact, the government wants it that way to free up more frequencies for other purposes.) Apple tends to be the first in the computer industry to drop older technologies. Apple dropped floppies before anyone else, if I remember correctly. I bet they're going to drop hard drives in favor of high volume flash memory with in the next year or two, as the price of that comes down. ESPECIALLY given the extremely limited space inside an iPhone, I don't thing you'll EVER see an FM receiver inside.

I mean, the thing already has cellular, wifi and bluetooth. Do we really need for radios in one device?
doesn't the iPhone have flash memory in place of an actuall hard drive like the nano?
how does high volume flash memory work? i always thought that the reason they used hard drives in the big ipods was because flash couldnt hold as much as a standard drive...then again i have a friend who took apart his nano for fun and said there were something like 5 empty flash drive slots and 1 8gig flash drive (meaning he could get 48 gigs in there?)
i could be totaly wrong - i don't know much about hard drives...
 

wot_fan

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doesn't the iPhone have flash memory in place of an actuall hard drive like the nano?
how does high volume flash memory work? i always thought that the reason they used hard drives in the big ipods was because flash couldnt hold as much as a standard drive...then again i have a friend who took apart his nano for fun and said there were something like 5 empty flash drive slots and 1 8gig flash drive (meaning he could get 48 gigs in there?)
i could be totaly wrong - i don't know much about hard drives...
Yes, the iPhone uses flash memory.

Flash has a lot of benefits over hard drives. It uses less power and is much more durable. The primary reason that the big iPods don't use flash is the cost. At this point, flash costs considerably more per GB than a hard drive does. As flash's price drops, you will see larger capacity nanos as well as iPhones. Eventually flash may replace hard drives in the video iPods as well.
 

robhon

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doesn't the iPhone have flash memory in place of an actuall hard drive like the nano?
how does high volume flash memory work? i always thought that the reason they used hard drives in the big ipods was because flash couldnt hold as much as a standard drive...then again i have a friend who took apart his nano for fun and said there were something like 5 empty flash drive slots and 1 8gig flash drive (meaning he could get 48 gigs in there?)
i could be totaly wrong - i don't know much about hard drives...
I was actually suggesting that Apple will drop the hard drives in favor of flash memory on a number of their COMPUTERS in the not-too-distant future.

iPhone will definitely be using flash.
 

ndelany

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Apr 9, 2007
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Radio

The iPhone has everything you could possibly imagine in a phone, a revolutionary camera, and a multi-touch system. The only thing the iPhone doesn't have is a radio. I guess the company figured that people would use the music they already have on their i-tunes but not all of us can afford to buy songs. For someone like me, who has two kids and is struggling the keep up, i cant spend extra money on i-tunes songs even though my children beg.:(
 

robhon

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People here on this site have discussed this before. There will probably be a way you can tune into pretty much any radio station via the internet connection. But it remains to be confirmed.

Hey, why be limited to the radio stations in traditional broadcast reach when you can tap into the internet and listen to pretty much any station in almost any market?
 

MarvinJS808

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Mar 27, 2007
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Good day to us all,

I like that idea... I will be away from home (living on the other side of the country, a continent and half an ocean away)... whenever I get homesick, I can just tune into one of the radio stations that stream music from home...
 

rtaylor07

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Apr 22, 2007
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How about iPhone with built in Sirius satellite radio yay. Then you could make your own Sirius satellite radio playlist lol.
 

pwb503

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How about iPhone with built in Sirius satellite radio yay. Then you could make your own Sirius satellite radio playlist lol.
Who needs Sirius when you have gigs of your own music collection ready to sync up. I'd rather have automatically downloaded podcasts/vodcasts to watch/listen to without having to manually sync with my computer.
 

Kabeyun

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Who needs Sirius when you have gigs of your own music collection ready to sync up.
I used to think this too, and I still do to some extent. That's why I've never really been interested in Sirius or XM in my car. Hours of audio tailored to my specific tastes? It's called iPod.

But I suppose there are those who have smallish audio collections who'd rather tap into a satellite mix. Then there's all the non-music content, much broader than what one could easily put onto an iPod.

A couple of years ago Apple was actually approached about building a satellite receiver into an iPod, but turned it down. For those wanting it, you'll probably have to wait for a 3rd party innovator (Kensington, Belkin, XTremeMac, etc.) to come up with a plug-in module.

-K
 

Bootlessjam

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If you want to listen to the radio you could just get a $2 pocket radio. They are so tiny and cheap nowdays.
 

miguel446

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May 9, 2007
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I'd like to be able to record the FM signal. This is a must for various programs I attend where the speakers are broadcast on an FM frequency.
 

joe

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May 5, 2007
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Who still listens to the radio?
I do when I'm trapped in the car and forgot my iPod. That problem would be solved with the iPhone. I don't go anywhere without my phone. I just can't stand grabbing one more thing when I head out. Keys, wallet, phone...
 

wjp09

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Feb 25, 2007
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Do you guys think it will support Website radio? I know many stations broadcast via the web.
 

erroneous

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Jun 23, 2007
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Forget the Radio.

What would be perfect would be the ability to listen
to Streaming Radio. Then, you could listen to any
radio station that streams their broadcasts.

I'm in Ohio, but I miss being able to hear a Chicago
news station, or a southern California Jazz Station.

With streaming audio capability, that would be Perfect!

John