[Spirit FM] danakers:
FM, ICS, Google and others

RAJAR, the UK's radio audience research body, summarised 2011 as a great year for the medium, with nationwide listening figures up a third on 2010 and over 90% of the population tuning into radio every week.

Let me say that again.

NINETY percent of the ENTIRE UK population (that's around 47 million adults) tune into the radio EVERY week.

Now before I set off on a rant, I confess I have a vested interest as I work in the industry myself. However, the reason I, along with 46,999,999 other Brits, tune into the radio is because you don't know what's coming next. Radio breaks you free from the confines and predictability of a self-programmed playlist, introducing you to new music, information, debate, comedy, news, personality and entertainment. If you've ever seen Howard Stern's biopic "Private Parts", you'll recall the scene where the Programme Director asks "if everybody hates him, why do they keep listening?", answer: "to hear what he's gonna say next". One quote which summarises why radio has worked since KDKA Pittsburgh took to the airwaves on 2nd November 1920, and still works to this day.

So why on Earth is FM radio dismissed by so many mobile handset producers? I have never owned an iPhone specifically because it lacks an FM radio. I love Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), yet can't use it because Google have seemingly switched off a still-thriving format. Of course, Google haven't officially announced their death-blow to radio, so my comments are based purely on speculation; I hope I'm wrong.

In California, 3G and 4G connectivity maybe faultless - 100% coverage perhaps, consistent speeds and zero black-spots; sounds like a cellular utopia. Here in London though, it's a different story. I commute to and from work daily, during breakfast and afternoon drive, arguably the best times of day to listen to the radio if you want stimulating content. I live just 10 miles outside Central London, yet receive sporadic reception (at best) during the vast majority of this journey. There's a 5 mile black-spot between New Beckenham and beyond Lewisham, all densely-populated areas, so TuneIn Radio (for example) is no good for me.

In the United States, talk is the dominating radio format, and I too enjoy listening to conversation, courtesy of London's LBC 97.3. Hearing the start of a compelling debate but not being able to hear it's conclusion is frustrating, if not damned annoying, but mobile manufacturers and now even software companies, are gradually forcing us all onto networks that cannot handle data reliably enough, simply because they refuse to unlock the most basic of technologies, the technology that made cellular communications possible in the first place: radio.

Are the likes of Apple and Google under pressure from the network providers to remove FM so they can reap the rewards of high data consumption? If so, we're taking a massive step backwards, not forwards. Yes, FM is ancient technology but it's still massively successful and used to consume broadcast radio more than any other platform it's available on. Until our cellular networks are able to cope with the demands placed upon them, until the infrastructure develops to the point of decent coverage (which at the moment it hasn't even managed in England's capital), there is a need, and desire, for FM radio to be included in our mobile handsets.

My HTC Desire smartphone is so smart it can play music, tell me where my bus is, show me the world from the comfort of Google Maps, take me online, to a race track, socialise, buy and sell, write documents, find my nearest bar (and then help me get home after I've had too many beers). It can even make phone calls and, you know the reason I bought this over an iPhone and why I still don't want to buy the latest Samsung Galaxy Nexus? Because it has an FM radio. The reason I bought a Nokia 2310, an N95 and all the other phones I've owned since.

I want a convergence device that can do everything as well as possible, not one with a set of features that only work dependent upon network conditions.

FM radio is alive and well, so long as we don't allow companies to thwart its success by removing a feature that isn't an issue to include in the first place (after all, many wifi/bluetooth chipsets also feature FM by default, and you can buy a $0.99 FM radio so the cost of the technology most certainly can't be an issue).

Anyway, rant over, with just one thing left to say: thank you for the Spirit FM Radio app - if only more developers would show interest in this area. Whilst it works brilliantly with other ROMs, sadly it doesn't work with ICS, as we've already established. I do hope this can be resolved in the future, otherwise I'll still be using an HTC Desire HD with Android 2.3 well into the next decade!