14 DAY TRIAL // The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) called for Apple to enable FM radio capabilities on iPhones in order to guarantee stable communications during natural disasters that typically bring the majority of cellular networks down.
Apple, however, explained though the voice of Philip Schiller that this isn’t possible simply because the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 8 “do not have FM radio chips” and antennas that would support FM signals.
And while this made sense at first, now NAB returns with a detailed statement, explaining that FM capabilities are there in iPhones, only that “Apple deliberately disabled FM.”
“Apple has specifically chosen not to offer this functionality in their iPhone. Indeed, Apple has disabled FM chips despite the capability being available on the communications module within the iPhone. This means other app developers cannot offer FM apps either,” the organization explains.
The FM radio chip is still there
While Apple itself says there’s no FM chip inside new iPhones, NAB points out that it closely inspected a series of teardowns and experts determined that the iPhone 8 still comes with the same 4357 chip family, which ships with an integrated FM radio chip according to Broadcom information.
Broadcom is the manufacturer of the chip used on all iPhone models, including on the iPhone 6 series where FM capabilities were still available.
What’s more, NAB says that the communication module does have FM capability, but it still needs an antenna to work. This isn’t possible at this point because Apple “purposefully does not connect the antenna.”
“Apple is a very successful company, and as evidenced by its Nano product, it knows how to do FM radio well. Activating the FM capabilities in their phones would be simple for them to accomplish if they wanted to, and I believe it would be supported by consumers,” NAB pointed out.
Apple hasn’t released an updated statement to answer NAB’s claims, but the organization says that while it’s willing to collaborate with the company, activating FM capability shouldn’t be such a difficult thing to do, especially because similar features have already been offered on older devices.