FM Radio and Android

There's been some discussion in the past few days whether FM Radio should be supported by google on devices that have capable circuitry, such as the Nexus One.

While there's been a constant and steady outcry for the feature from the community, as I understand it, the feature can be activated by using a non-stock ROM for your Nexus One, something Google has very much, opened the door for by creating the Android OS and making it open source.

If you don't have a custom ROM, you'll at least need a custom application and root access. Neither of which is terribly hard to achieve.

As the story goes, everyone has to have an opinion.

My standpoint is, why not?

I don't think google should have to take the time to push out an FM Tuner application, the community can do that easily, heck, as far as I understand, they already have, but why require users to have root access? My question is, why doesn't google allow the software to work WITHOUT root? The changes would be minor, probably just a matter of adding a module into the kernel to permit the functions and initialize the device, not difficult. Then, when the feature is enabled, if people want it, they can download the 3rd party applications from the community to make FM Work. If it's successful enough, and the media player design team is sufficiently bored, why not have them add the feature to the built-in media player on the google experience?

Makes sense to me. It would ensure the minimum amount of effort by google to make the system work, while maintaining a happy client base by allowing them to use the feature without requiring root, and also, keep their streamlined look and feel of the phone.

Maybe in Honeycomb.