Is this the latest “sneaky” way to insist all phones need headphone jacks?
Because from an emergency standpoint: Most (all?) cars still have analog radios and it is generally encouraged to have a “weather radio” in any emergency kit. Hell, many building emergency kits will have one (even if it is just the shitty radio the rent a cop uses to listen to The Game in the booth). And in the event of a disaster, you really do want to group up. If only because it makes you an easier target for satellites and rescue flights.
So, from an emergency preparedness perspective, this seems like an incredibly niche situation where people are completely isolated, don’t have a car, but still need to tune in to an emergency radio broadcast to figure out where to go and it is not “go to the nearest population center that is not a smoldering wreck”.
IIRC that’s just an issue with AM radios.
And it happens with petrol cars too. A friend of mine’s car has this weird quirk where, while running below 50km/h, (I assume) the alternator generates RF interference in the AM band.
We have nothing broadcasting there though, so no biggie.
The vast majority of vehicles on the road still have them so, again, unless you are truly in the middle of nowhere you can generally flag someone down while you watch Clover be a metaphor for 9-11 and remember “oh yeah, Lizzy Caplan was in this”
And as cars move away from AM/FM: Then we have alternate emergency solutions. Which, again, weather radio in the emergency bag that you just leave in your trunk until you sell the car. And we work to improve the coverage and resilience of emergency broadcasts that phones pick up (speaking of…).
Which gets back to all of this being a “sneaky” way to insist phones need headphone jacks. Since you need an antenna for FM and that is usually a speaker wire. Which… is extra useless and increasingly dangerous if you are trying to hold up your earbuds (because we all still have wired earbuds…) while driving through The Mist.
… which also highlights why a phone is a bad emergency radio. Since plugging in earbuds will generally cut off the phone speakers. But you also need to hold up the earbuds to get enough reception to get a signal. Or you are driving with earbuds in which lowers your awareness during an emergency.
Again, emergency/weather radios. They are cheap, a lot of them have backup hand cranks, and you can just put it in the roadside emergency bag right next to the electric flares/beacons that are basically one time use because, if you pull that tab, the batteries WILL have corroded ten years later when you need them again.
In the US, you can get magnesium road flares. IIRC, some places in Europe don’t permit them due to fire risk, but in the States, I can get them even in California (which is probably about the most fire-conscious state out there).
Ride around in a golf cart listening to the radio sometime. It works fine.
Part of the reason the manufacturers want to get rid of the radios is because they make the entertainment center style consoles that all cars have now much more expensive.
For most people, the best radio they own is the one in their car. Radios near interference sources like rotating iron parts need to be well shielded and a lot of the design techniques that will accommodate high selectivity and sensitivity are shared with interference tolerance.
So even the shittiest car had to have a decent radio.
Nowadays the shittiest car could have a godawful quality infotainment system if it weren’t for the damn radio that buyers expect. And it’s not like the manufacturers can just slap down a trash radio into the infotainment system, it would require shielding, separation and a host of other components and techniques that are just left off crappier digital electronics all together.
Since so many other countries have sunset analog fm, theres readily available cheap shitty infotainment systems for use in the rios and versas that make up the majority of car sales in the us and have razor thin profit margins.
So… no, the electric motors aren’t keeping them from putting a radio in electric cars.
E: but if you don’t wanna believe gayhitler420s rant about radio, plenty of electric cars have am/fm radios in em, including the Toyota bz4x.
Right now the iPhone can straight up connect to the Iridium Satellite network, which IMO is far more useful that FM radio in any emergency. At least that system can send and receive messages, including most importantly GPS Co-ordinates.
Is this the latest “sneaky” way to insist all phones need headphone jacks?
Because from an emergency standpoint: Most (all?) cars still have analog radios and it is generally encouraged to have a “weather radio” in any emergency kit. Hell, many building emergency kits will have one (even if it is just the shitty radio the rent a cop uses to listen to The Game in the booth). And in the event of a disaster, you really do want to group up. If only because it makes you an easier target for satellites and rescue flights.
So, from an emergency preparedness perspective, this seems like an incredibly niche situation where people are completely isolated, don’t have a car, but still need to tune in to an emergency radio broadcast to figure out where to go and it is not “go to the nearest population center that is not a smoldering wreck”.
all phones do need headphone jacks though
Best we can do is a fancy pen for all that art that people do on their phones all the time
My current phone has an FM radio, and no headphone jack. It uses the headphones as antenna via the USB-C adapter.
Never used it, though - and rarely used radio in any phone which had that feature before that.
Actually many modern electric cars are trying to get rid of FM radios because the electric motors can cause all sorts of interference (or so they say)
IIRC that’s just an issue with AM radios. And it happens with petrol cars too. A friend of mine’s car has this weird quirk where, while running below 50km/h, (I assume) the alternator generates RF interference in the AM band.
We have nothing broadcasting there though, so no biggie.
The vast majority of vehicles on the road still have them so, again, unless you are truly in the middle of nowhere you can generally flag someone down while you watch Clover be a metaphor for 9-11 and remember “oh yeah, Lizzy Caplan was in this”
And as cars move away from AM/FM: Then we have alternate emergency solutions. Which, again, weather radio in the emergency bag that you just leave in your trunk until you sell the car. And we work to improve the coverage and resilience of emergency broadcasts that phones pick up (speaking of…).
Which gets back to all of this being a “sneaky” way to insist phones need headphone jacks. Since you need an antenna for FM and that is usually a speaker wire. Which… is extra useless and increasingly dangerous if you are trying to hold up your earbuds (because we all still have wired earbuds…) while driving through The Mist.
… which also highlights why a phone is a bad emergency radio. Since plugging in earbuds will generally cut off the phone speakers. But you also need to hold up the earbuds to get enough reception to get a signal. Or you are driving with earbuds in which lowers your awareness during an emergency.
Again, emergency/weather radios. They are cheap, a lot of them have backup hand cranks, and you can just put it in the roadside emergency bag right next to the electric flares/beacons that are basically one time use because, if you pull that tab, the batteries WILL have corroded ten years later when you need them again.
In the US, you can get magnesium road flares. IIRC, some places in Europe don’t permit them due to fire risk, but in the States, I can get them even in California (which is probably about the most fire-conscious state out there).
That’s bullshit.
Ride around in a golf cart listening to the radio sometime. It works fine.
Part of the reason the manufacturers want to get rid of the radios is because they make the entertainment center style consoles that all cars have now much more expensive.
For most people, the best radio they own is the one in their car. Radios near interference sources like rotating iron parts need to be well shielded and a lot of the design techniques that will accommodate high selectivity and sensitivity are shared with interference tolerance.
So even the shittiest car had to have a decent radio.
Nowadays the shittiest car could have a godawful quality infotainment system if it weren’t for the damn radio that buyers expect. And it’s not like the manufacturers can just slap down a trash radio into the infotainment system, it would require shielding, separation and a host of other components and techniques that are just left off crappier digital electronics all together.
Since so many other countries have sunset analog fm, theres readily available cheap shitty infotainment systems for use in the rios and versas that make up the majority of car sales in the us and have razor thin profit margins.
So… no, the electric motors aren’t keeping them from putting a radio in electric cars.
E: but if you don’t wanna believe gayhitler420s rant about radio, plenty of electric cars have am/fm radios in em, including the Toyota bz4x.
Right now the iPhone can straight up connect to the Iridium Satellite network, which IMO is far more useful that FM radio in any emergency. At least that system can send and receive messages, including most importantly GPS Co-ordinates.