Radio? It's in there

Just a quick observation on the September 9, 2009 announcement by Apple that the new iPod Nano will have an FM Radio tuner.

(A radio that can pause, it needs to be noted).

An FM radio has been a feature that iPod users have wanted for years. It is also a feature that is waiting for the iPhone.

Back when the 2009 version of the iPhone was released, the site ifixit did their "what's inside" look.





And the folks at phonewreck did an analysis of the logic board on the iphone.




If you look at the block diagram, the lower left hand part of the image, the chip marked "Wi-FI and Bluetooth Tranceiver" also happens to have an FM tuner built in. In the iPhone, on the logic board.

It's in there.

Now for those of us hoping for HD Radio in an iPhone or iPod the way it is in the new Zune, that may well come another day. But just 76 years after Edwin H. Armstrong invented FM, it's in an iPod. And the chip for it is in "the phone."