Update 2: Now Apple's apparently getting serious about HD radio in the touch and iPhone. From AppleInsider. I can't see how HD radio makes it without this sort of mainstream adoption. I don't think it's happening in cars, but teaming up with ultra-portable computers makes more sense. Wonder what sort of data they'll ship that'll put them over the top -- imagine getting broadcast video with your radio or, what's got to follow, DTV reception...

Update: Now that I have one, I find that track tagging isn't a sign of HD Radio and that the nano does not, in fact, support HD. HD Radio really is a technology without a purpose. Does anyone really dislike FM? Do you really need CD quality tunes in anything short of a Maybach? Well, short of the cars the top 10% drive?

If one could do anything for radio, it'd be to use digital metadata (or any metadata, honestly) to make it easier to discover sports radio, political, blues, rock, etc in a new area. I'm not sure why I have to tune for an hour to find a new station. I should be able to hit "Sports" on my radio and have it looking even before the last station is out. GPS enabled searching? Even better.

Back to the old, horrendously flawed post from 9/9/09:
I think it's finally a lock. The new iPod nano supports "iTunes tagging" of songs on the radio -- but when I say radio, I mean FM HD radio. (And no, HD doesn't mean high definition. It means, "HD sounded cool, resonated with TV, and we decided to use it.")

But now that an iPod supports FM and at least track tagging from HD, this route of using metadata to monetize radio is going to get pretty popular. That the FM+tagging stream is backward compatible and doesn't redefine the medium in a fell swoop should also help adoption. Reasonable remediation/reformation + popular platform supporting the reform == hats o' caish.

A little on tagging from... The Complete Guide to iTunes Tagging | iLounge Article:

Developed by Apple and implemented in new iPod speaker systems by companies such as Polk Audio and JBL, iTunes Tagging enables an HD Radio tuner to record information about the currently playing track, save it to an iPod, and let the iPodโ€™s user easily find that track in the iTunes Store for purchase.


In other news, I lost my old iPod nano today (for realz) and decided that the move to larger Pringles cans are not only to convince you that $1.50 is a good price for what used to be $1.20 of chips, but is also designed so that, since you're expected to have occasions where you'll eat until they're gone, you'll eat more of them. Imagine that?

So far I've been buying less Pringles in spite of their best laid plans, but I don't think it's enough to buy a new nano.

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