Skip to main content

These headphones bring FM radio to your iPhone

By

A new pair of wired earbuds from Blackloud is offering a much simpler way to access local FM radio when the internet’s down or you’ve maxed out your data plan. It might be crackly and prone to interference, but traditional FM radio transmissions are free, and much more reliable in a crisis.

The Blackloud AF1 FM headset works by building its FM tuner into an in-line control box, while the cable functions as the antenna. The headphones then plug into your iPhone via the Lightning jack (a USB Type-C model for Android handsets is planned for next year), and you control radio playback via a companion app. It’s a brute-force solution, since most smartphones still contain hidden FM receivers.

Nevertheless, you can see how it might be useful in this ridiculous promotional ad:

Unless you’re a big radio fan with a limited amount of data, we doubt that you’re going to use the tuner on a regular basis. Instead, it’ll likely serve as an emergency backup. When natural disasters hit it’s common for cellular services to go down or become overwhelmed, while analog radio towers continue to broadcast. When that happens you’ll just have to hope that you’ve got the electricity needed to keep your power-hungry smartphone charged.

The Blackloud AF1 FM headset are available now for $79.89 directly from Blackloud.



from The Verge - Teches https://ift.tt/2Q2lrPP
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to install Fortnite on Android

By
Epic Games launched its battle royale hit Fortnite on Android devices last week with a big catch: it was exclusive to Samsung-made phones for a few days as a way to help market the new Samsung Galaxy Note 9. Now, the exclusivity period appears to be over, and beta invite codes are going out to select users of non-Samsung phones like the Google Pixel 2 XL. If you’re itching to dive off the battle bus on mobile, you might have to hold on just a little while longer: there appears to be a waiting list, just like there was when the game launched on iOS. There’s also a bit of trickiness involving exactly how you get the app because Epic announced it would be distributing the Android version of Fortnite on its own terms . Last week, the app was distributed through Samsung’s app store, and Epic is using its own website and a Fortnite Installer program to distribute the game more widely on all compatible Android devices. (Epic CEO Tim Sweeney said this is basically to avoid paying Google...
Post a Comment
Read more

Apple’s Siri Shortcuts app now available for iOS 12

By
Apple is making Siri a lot more powerful in both iOS 12 and watchOS 5. Siri’s new Shortcuts feature is now available to download for iOS 12 users, and it allows iPhone and Apple Watch users to use Siri to step through multistep routines. Shortcuts replaces the previous Workflow app that Apple acquired last year, and is designed to allow you to create custom commands in Siri that launch apps or combine a number of actions in a similar way to IFTTT. You can do things like tell Siri you’re “watching a movie” and the digital assistant will switch your phone to do not disturb. A number of app developers are also launching their own custom Siri shortcuts with iOS 12, which will help the assistant display more information when you create a custom phrase. Citymapper is one of the first big apps with Siri shortcuts support, allowing you to create a shortcut to ask “when’s my next train” and get relevant updates and even platform information. You can download Siri Shortcuts from the App Sto...
Post a Comment
Read more