Summary
- AM / FM radio support was once a common feature on smartphone models, but this is no longer the case.
- Traditional radio hardware is physically incorporated into most modern smartphones, but users can’t always access the function.
- This neglect of user-accessible radio streaming is a major problem from a safety and security perspective.
In the earlier days of the smartphone industry, it was a given that your handset would ship with built-in support for local AM and FM radio connectivity. Aside from the iPhone, which never offered such functionality, just about every Android phone from the 2010s provided a default radio experience out of the box.
In a similar fashion to how radio connectivity worked back in the iPod days, most Android manufacturers allowed you to plug in a pair of wired headphones to use as a stopgap radio antenna. From here, you could enable loudspeaker playback even while having your headphones plugged into your phone.
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Admittedly, even at the time, traditional radio was seen as an increasingly antiquated technology. Internet-based streaming services were gaining traction at a rapid pace, offering unlimited and worldwide access to media without the need for a local connection.
…just about every Android phone from the 2010s provided a default radio app out of the box.
These days, the majority of higher-end smartphones released within Western markets lack a dedicated FM / AM radio tuner interface. Just about everyone has shifted over to internet-based solutions, which use a mobile data connection or Wi-Fi connectivity to get the job done.
The truth, however, is that smartphone makers should never have removed the ability to tap into local radio waves. From a security and user safety standpoint, I strongly believe the feature ought to be included on every mobile device released into the market.
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Phone makers talk a big game when it comes to user safety, but they neglect the utility of traditional radio
The irony is that AM / FM radio hardware is often built-in, but not user-accessible on modern handsets
Across the board, major smartphone manufacturers have been hyping up user safety in recent years. From Google’s Theft Detection Lock feature, to Apple’s Emergency SOS via satellite tool, the consensus has been that our pocket computers should do more to protect us in our times of need.
Inconsistent to this world view is the conscious decision made by OEMs to disable local AM and FM radio support on modern handsets. It goes without saying that access to a traditional radio tuner can be handy in certain situations, such as during a power outage, during a natural disaster, or when internet connectivity is simply inaccessible.
What’s more surprising is that the hardware is generally in place to allow for traditional radio playback on most modern devices. AM/FM tuner chips can be found on many modern devices, but users are artificially locked out of using said hardware. Though exact justifications aren’t readily available, it can be surmised that OEMs and cellular carriers view legacy radio technology as a threat to the cash cow that is subscription-based internet streaming.
…access to a traditional radio tuner can be handy in certain situations, such as during a power outage, during a natural disaster, or when internet connectivity is simply inaccessible.
To add insult to injury, the lack of local radio playback support isn’t universal — in many markets, and in many budget-conscious handsets, AM and FM support is alive and well. Take Samsung’s Galaxy A15, as an example: it comes preinstalled with a first party radio tuning app, which is absent from the much more expensive and technologically advanced Galaxy S24 model.
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Other phone makers, such as Motorola, follow this same playbook. The Lenovo-owned company offers an FM tuner of its own, which only works on certain Moto models “with an enabled FM chipset.”
Unfortunately, it appears that there isn’t an easy way to enable the already-present radio tuning chip in your own smartphone. A now-defunct app called NextRadio once brought local FM radio to any Android smartphone with an unlocked radio receiver, but the app has fallen to the wayside in recent years. When launching the app on my Pixel 5, the splash screen simply reads that “FM radio is unavailable.”
…the ability to tune into local radio waves will always serve a relevant purpose when it comes to personal safety.
I’d personally love to see the return of local radio access across the broader smartphone scene, if for no other reason than for added security during a power blackout. There are a number of excellent internet-based radio apps to choose from, but the ability to tune into local radio waves will always serve a relevant purpose when it comes to safety.
I don’t anticipate change happening anytime soon, but then again, we’re witnessing the re-establishment of user-removable batteries within the mobile industry, so certainly anything is possible in the years to come. For the time being, I’ll continue to store my go-to transistor radio, the Sony ICF-P26, within my personal emergency kit.
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