Noise when listening offline FM radio

[flintlock]

I can't understand why a carrier would have the gall to cripple a built in feature. I miss it from my Droid X, it was gone on my Galaxy S3. Both were on Verizon unlimited data so I don't see a motive to force me to consume data.

 

[N4Newbie]

I'm confused. Are you blaming T-Mobile for not making an app for a feature that was implemented by Samsung? I would blame Samsung for not including an app to use a feature they built-in to the phone, not the carrier.

Yes, definitely possible that a poor audio path inside the device could cause some reception issues. I don't have the means to test that though nor the expertise to say whether the electrical cross-talk in the device is enough to even affect the FM reception (it may or may not be).

This has been common practice among carriers - to not include a means to access the FM receiver hardware on many devices. And, yes, carriers do have a lot of control over this, just as it is carriers that include bloatware on devices, above and beyond that included by some manufacturers.

As to radio interference, as I mentioned in the other thread, years ago (okay, decades ago) I had a Texas Instruments programmable calculator which caused massive interference to my bedside FM clock radio whenever I held it nearby. In fact, I could vary the pitch and tone of the interference, Theremin-like, just by slight differences in the position of the calculator.

So, I would consider it at least possible that improper shielding is the cause of the OP's problem.

 

[Kevin OQuinn]

This has been common practice among carriers - to not include a means to access the FM receiver hardware on many devices. And, yes, carriers do have a lot of control over this, just as it is carriers that include bloatware on devices, above and beyond that included by some manufacturers.

As to radio interference, as I mentioned in the other thread, years ago (okay, decades ago) I had a Texas Instruments programmable calculator which caused massive interference to my bedside FM clock radio whenever I held it nearby. In fact, I could vary the pitch and tone of the interference, Theremin-like, just by slight differences in the position of the calculator.

So, I would consider it at least possible that improper shielding is the cause of the OP's problem.

Heh. Samsung didn't even put FM radio hardware into the Exynos version (according to some quick research) so it's no wonder it's basically being ignored by them.

I still don't blame T-Mobile for not including an FM radio app on the device. It's probably not used near enough for them to spend money on one. Now, they could suggest one and provide a Play Store link to it on a support page or something like that.