The iphone is a cell phone with an mp3 player, a digital camera, real time video, Google Maps, photo storage, email and internet access. Gee, it seems like this smartphone has just about everything anybody could want, that is . . . except FM radio.



There used to be a time when the portable transistor radio was the only way a person could take their music with them wherever they went. Back in the day, this was a major attraction, because radio was king and everybody could get at least two or three stations whether they were sitting in the park, hanging out at the beach, or listening in while they were at work.

The problem with the old style transistor radio was that it wasn't very personable. Everybody could hear what you were listening to, which could be disruptive in certain situations. Then Sony comes along with the Sony Walkman.

Suddenly, we could all listen to our favorite music on cassette tapes while on the go. Actually, this was pretty revolutionary back in the day because most people had a decent collection of albums, but you couldn't listen to them anywhere but on your home stereo. The boom box was in, but that was big and cumbersome.

Sony made it popular to carry around a collection of select music, in a compact unit, that didn't rely on what your local DJ was playing on the radio. As the Walkman became more popular, the less convenient portable radios became a thing of the past ? almost. Sony does make a portable radio that's pretty cool.

The lack of a radio on the Walkman personal cassette player is directly linked to the iPhone of today. There is speculation that manufacturers do not include radio on CD, mp3 players and the iphone due to technical restraints and wanting to keep the units compact.

However, if the iphone can access the internet, why is it so difficult to include radio access as well?

A multimedia device like the iphone should definitely include some kind of streaming FM radio service. Even though radio has been marginalized by mp3 downloaded content, there is still a large group of people who desire to have the option of listening to their favorite radio stations as well.

Apple does have iTunes radio that you can easily listen to on your computer. If you've been there, you know how great the selection is. We now have more access to radio stations than ever before, yet, we still can't easily get radio on our ipod or iphone.

Sigh.

I have to admit that there must be a practical reason why Apple did not include FM radio as part of the iphone applications, but so far, there's no explanation for this to the consumers.

Hey, but maybe there is reason to be hopeful that this feature will be added in the future. There's already a rumor that the next generation of the iphone may include an application that can stream FM radio. For now, our iphone FM radio dreams are just wishful thinking.