Up ’til now, we thought terrestrial radio capability was not part of the new iPhone 3G S.
However, one sharp-eyed friend of Radio World says that appears not to be the case. He points to an analysis by iSuppli, a company that dissects and analyzes consumer electronics devices. In doing a teardown of the new phone, iSuppli says it found a Broadcom Bluetooth/WiFi/FM-RDS chipset. (The research company also believes that the bill of materials and supply cost to Apple of the entry-level version of the new device is around $179.)
Apple doesn’t discuss details like this so I’m not sure if that $6 Broadcom chip is even turned on. But if radio capability in there, you can be sure broadcasters will be all the more likely to call for its activation.
Our industry friend also observes: “Many of us believe that Apple may not produce an ‘FM radio’ as a formal part of the iPhone, but rather simply give apps developers the ability to create iPhone apps utilizing FM radio.”
