Oh the wonders of technology

merari42@lemmy.world to Lemmy Shitpost@lemmy.world – 1495 points –
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Have that stuff looks like duplicatous audio reproduction technology and what's in my pocket doesn't sound nearly as good as that boom box likely does.

Also that thing in the right looks maybe like a radio and there are streaming emulators, but still no actual radios in most of our pockets unfortunately.

I had an Nokia, my last “featurephone” before I got my first smartphone, which actually had an FM tuner built-in. It used the headphone wire as an antenna as far as I recall. Quite neat, not that I ever really used it, but it was perfectly serviceable. And a great way of having music on the go in the days before streaming music was widely available.

One of my first smartphones could do that as well. I don't pay for streaming services and I don't have infinite data like most people seem to have, so I dearly miss that kind of feature. The corporate overlords have decided that free is bad.

One of my first smartphones, I don't remember the brand, but it was a Chinese knockoff, even had a TV tuner, with a built-in antenna that retracted into the case. I had to stay in the hospital for a few days and it was great. This was back around 2010.

Honestly you didn't miss much. I used the one in my phone for a couple weeks at work until I found out I could get way better reception out of just about any dedicated portable radio. I think the headphones as an antenna thing works best when you're fairly close to a transmitter.

Some androids have fm radios and it uses the headphone cable as an antenna.

I had a Motorola that did it and I think my workphone has it too.

I recall my last phone didn't need the headphones plugged in for the FM to work too bad it was super fragile causing the screen to shatter without getting dropped or touched durability aside I quite liked my old Motorola

That is cool if it worked without them. It’s too bad it’s not more common on phones. There is something cool about receiving radio waves and hearing what’s being said.

But last time I tried it, it was mostly commercials.

Weirdly, I'm pretty sure Qualcomm chips still include an FM tuner. Most manufacturers just decide not to enable it and hook up the antenna.

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