[T-Mobile Galaxy Note 4 General] jazzmachine:
[MENTION=5616548]cronos1388[/MENTION] - I agree entirely with your point and am also perplexed as to how discussing it could provoke argument :eek:

Here's a breakdown of the situation. Every Note 4 has the hardware to receive FM radio OTA broadcasts built-in (see that it's listed on this page and specifically it's "status": http://nextradioapp.com/supported-devices/ ). People may very well think things along the lines of "FM radio stinks" :rolleyes: but I'm afraid that that's merely your opinion, and actually for many its scent is quite pleasant... Consider if the situation involved, say, the wifi radio and not the FM radio. Some people use WIFI heavily, some (few) use it hardly at all and would barely notice if it was built into the device, but "inactive". If you were among the very few who actually didn't care that your device had a functional, but simply "inactive" wifi radio built-in to it, would your response to complaints about this entirely unacceptable situation be, "LOL, you can just connect a usb wifi dongle with a micro-usb adapter if you want wifi so bad... WIFI totally sucks compared to LTE"? The situation with having a hardware receiver for FM radio built into the phone, but "disabled, and unusable unless..." is no different regardless of your personal feelings towards the content on FM radio.*

If you (accurately) think that software "bloat" on TW ROMS is a problem, this is a magnitude of order worse. Including a "deactivated" hardware FM receiver on the device is freaking hardware bloat... it's wasted extremely precious real-estate in the increasingly shrinking "smartphone" (read: computing device that you can carry in your pocket) form-factor... why on Earth would that physical space be devoted to an unusable (unless Sprint, Boost, or Virgin Mobile sold you your phone) hardware module? I would be into using an FM radio receiver on my phone, but if I "can't", how about ditching that receiver and including something that actually has a purpose (the missing ambient temp / humidity sensor that was on my N3 comes to mind)?

To the user that suggested buying a separate radio device to "solve" this problem, if you relied heavily on your N4's camera, and it began to malfunction, would you "solve" that problem by buying one of those cardboard pos... I mean p&s cameras to "solve" that problem? Or would you fix / replace your phone? Again, same issue. Personally, I would like to at least have the

option

of making use of all the hardware devices on my computer that I happen to always carry in my pocket. The only "additional hardware" that I'm willing to use (portable-style) is a small USB DAC or maybe a micro usb flash drive. Neither adds anything to the phone's onboard hardware, but enhances its functionality. If the device itself is entirely capable of a certain function that I want to use, why would I want to use / carry a second device that doesn't even perform that function as well as the phone could?

*Btw have you ever even tried to find any "non-mainstream" radio stations... perhaps towards the lower end of the dial... that might actually appeal to you? In Chicago we have a great jazz radio station, NPR if that's your thing, late night underground hip-hop mix stuff... those are all examples of public radio which is truly an invaluable source of media. In fact, the philosophy behind public radio overlaps significantly with the philosophy behind FOSS / AOSP so it is a bit contradictory to be an educated Android user who wants to be able to modify their device and not care about "free" (as in freedom, not as in "beer") media sources such as radio and open OTA TV broadcasting. If you'd like to know about the (edit: sound quality) benefits of FM radio vs. streaming services this might offer you some useful info: http://nextradioapp.com/faq/#what-is-fm-radio