Apple: ‘Chip? What FM Chip?’
Ahem… in response to Apple’s statement, the NAB said, “Oh reallllly?” Okay, we were paraphrasing… In reality, NAB EVP of Communications Dennis Wharton retorted, “Since 2012 NAB has commissioned quarterly ‘tear down’ reports from ABI Research on a wide variety of Smartphones to discover their capabilities. ABI’s analysis reveals that every Apple iPhone built during that time, including the iPhone 7, has a chipset that includes support for FM radio. Apple also continues to sell an iPhone 6S with an FM chip that is not activated, and there are nearly 100 million iPhones in the marketplace with a deactivated FM chip.
Wharton continued, “Like FCC Chairman Pai, we encourage Apple to activate this feature on their future handsets so Americans can have access to lifesaving information during emergency situations, something that many local radio stations provide. We welcome the opportunity to work with Apple to make that happen.” Apple — the ball is now in your court.
• In a related story, Adams Radio Group just launched a companywide campaign in support of FM chip activation — details about that can be found a little further down the page…