SM-G930U (US unlocked version of the S7) FM Radio broadcast band reception capability

[ZoneXQ]

Samsung tech support tells me that the hardware for FM radio reception is there on this device. But they further tell me that it may or may not be accessible and that it will depend on whether the software supports it. I've tried the two best known FM radio apps (NextRadio and Spirit1 FM), but neither will access the FM chip on this S7. I even tried a generic FM radio apk that comes with certain android devices. It loads and when I toggle on the FM tuner, it shows "Turning on FM" with a spinning circle that remains visible and spins forever.

One problem is that such a low percentage of S7 owners have the SM-G930U and the remaining S7 owners -mostly with carrier-specific model owners-, already have access to the FM receiver on their S7s through carrier enablement and included bundled software (NextRadio) that's configured to access the onboard FM chip.

Any thoughts or ideas about this will be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

 

[SpookDroid]

The rep is right: Unless the chip is turned on in your particular version of the OS, it won't be accessible to any app, no matter that the hardware is there. While it seems odd, it's not unheard of. Not all carrier versions, I believe, have activated it, and on that note, that means that the phones shipped and stayed with the hardware capabilities but the software side disabled for a while after launch. Maybe this is the case with the unlocked version and the FM radio is just not active in the ROM.

 

[ZoneXQ]

Thanks for the reply.

The Samsung rep said that it may be possible for an app developer to place code in an application that turns on the chip without it being done by the firmware (which I believe is provisioned by Google and/or Sprint). If that's possible, my only concern is that said app approach isn't likely to happen because so few of us have the 930U. Considering that a much greater proportion of S7 users own the carrier-specific S7 versions, and that those versions (for the most part) already allow FM receiver functionality, the users have no reason to rally for a solution on this issue. Does that seem like a reasonable assumption to you?

By the way, I've also found that the handy Sprint Zone app won't access account information when installed on the 930U. While it's nice to get rid of most of the bloatware... there are a few apps and functions that are sorely missed :-\. It's too bad we can't somehow opt in on some of them.