How Apple will kill satellite radio this summer

[rostasi]

"Satellite radio will die soon anyway, but Apple will accidentally perform a mercy killing of Sirius XM Radio this summer. That is, if the rumors are true (and they probably are)."

"The first rumor is that Apple will ship in June or July a new iPhone and a new iPod Touch, both of which containing a new Broadcom BCM4329 chip that would give the gadgets 802.11n wireless. That would boost Wi-Fi, but even more interestingly enable the devices to broadcast music to any car stereo via FM. (Users simply set their car radios to the "station" that the iPhone or iPod is broadcasting on, and they can play over car speakers whatever the iPhone is playing. The feature would enable only buyers of new iPhones and new iPod touches to play audio in any car with an FM radio."

"The second rumor..."

continued...

[Jim Alfredson]

Concerning FM broadcasting to your car; unless you live in an extremely rural setting where there is still "free" space on the dial (ie, no radio stations in certain sections), then it won't work. Terrestrial stations emit too much power for the lowly FM transmitter to overcome.

Two friends of mine tried to use their iPods this way in cars that didn't have a cassette deck nor an aux input. They bought those Belkin FM transmitters for the iPod and they would never work because there were just too many stations clogging up every available position on the dial. And that's just here in podunk Lansing.

As for satellite radio, they basically killed the good programming when the two companies merged anyway. Pandora is the bomb (search for organissimo on there!)!

[BERIGAN]

Concerning FM broadcasting to your car; unless you live in an extremely rural setting where there is still "free" space on the dial (ie, no radio stations in certain sections), then it won't work. Terrestrial stations emit too much power for the lowly FM transmitter to overcome.

Two friends of mine tried to use their iPods this way in cars that didn't have a cassette deck nor an aux input. They bought those Belkin FM transmitters for the iPod and they would never work because there were just too many stations clogging up every available position on the dial. And that's just here in podunk Lansing.

As for satellite radio, they basically killed the good programming when the two companies merged anyway. Pandora is the bomb (search for organissimo on there!)!

Jim, I love Pandora as well! didn't know you guys were there!

But, can you do Pandora in your car??? FM only seems to get worse, and has more commericals than ever.... If my car (and it's radio) wasn't from 1973(and I had the moola) I'd switch to Satellite in a heartbeat.

[sjarrell]

I use a Kensington transmitter in my car and have found a single frequency that I never have any trouble with. But mine was bought about the time that the FCC rules changed last year, and I think it was discontinued for being too powerful.

[rostasi]

Tho FM transmission is inherently poorer than auxiliary

and even cassette in many cases, the wide range of

people offering these FM transmitters has been growing

quickly. If the product is well-made, you can really get

it to work even in areas of station congestion.

Belkin and Griffin are the worst (meaning: weakest).

After researching, I was sold on "AirPlay" (XtremeMac)

which has worked great for me not only in densely populated US cities

(Washington DC and environs, for instance), but has worked

flawlessly in large European cities. Often it would narrowcast right on top of

stations that were actually broadcasting on the lower ends of the spectrum

and force my iPod to overrule the local station. Excellent and fits

in the palm of your hand. I've heard that "PodFreq" (Sonnet) is even better

and the same about the Kensington unit just mentioned, but I haven't tried either.

Anyway, it seems that if Apple does it right,

this new chip could make it even better than what's out there.

We shall see... Looking forward to Last.FM in the car (far better than Pandora, methinks).