How to make an FM Radio Application in Android

Question

This is just out of curiosity.

Is there any way we can make an FM Radio App for Android devices? I know this is possible, as most of the android devices these days come with an built-in Radio App.

But how can I make such an App?

Where is the FM Radio Api?

No, you can't make radio, because /dev/fm isn't accessible without platform key. Take a look for AOSP FMRadio project — Petrov Dmitrii, Feb 08 '17 at 12:51

Darth Beleg · Accepted Answer · 2017-06-19T15:39:14.333

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There is no official API for FM radio in Android, however enthusiasts found the way to enable radio on Nexus One

Devices that I worked with have proprietary vendor-specific API to work with FM radio. Reverse engineering has to be used to figure out API signatures which may (and most likely will) be prohibited by the licence agreement of the device's firmware.

edited Jun 19 '17 at 15:39

answered Dec 19 '11 at 10:19

Darth Beleg

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Using the outcome of reverse engineering job is perfectly legal. – Free Consulting Jun 07 '17 at 18:08
@FreeConsulting actually it's not. Almost every TOS of any service explicitly prohibits reverse-engineering their software and then, of course, using the reverse-engineered functions. – techfly Jun 17 '17 at 14:07
@Aenadon, that statement is, or course, simply negligible, sorry. – Free Consulting Jun 19 '17 at 22:58
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@FreeConsulting whether or not it is safe to violate TOS/EULA in this aspect is a legal question and the answer may be different in different countries. – Darth Beleg Jun 21 '17 at 12:22
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@DarthBeleg, no, you are misinforming any of the readers. This is especially harmful toward underdeveloped FM-RDS area. Wherever fair-use reverse engineering legal or not **is** a question of jurisdiction. Yet the [fair] usage of the outcome is legal virtually everywhere presumed there are no patent/IP violations. – Free Consulting Jun 21 '17 at 15:53

score 12 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 07 '17 at 18:12

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Here is the Sony Mobile open sourced FM radio module for the 2011 Xperia™ phones, to be used by custom ROM developers.

edited Jun 07 '17 at 18:12

Free Consulting

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answered May 31 '12 at 20:47

Assaf R.

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score 9 · Answer 3 · edited Jun 07 '17 at 18:38

Many mobile devices are equipped with FM capabilities, often packaged in the same chip with Bluetooth and WiFi. Unfortunately, the FM functionnality is often disabled or hardly accessible for third party developpers.

The Communications Research Centre (Canada) developped an Android library to access the FM-RDS capabilities of the Samsung Galaxy S (some models only). It is the same library that is used in the "FM TwoO" Radio App (look on Android Market/Google Play). You can find this library on their website, with documentation and tutorials: http://mmbtools.crc.ca/content/view/53/33/.

You might also be interested by this: BlackBerry has a FM radio API now (since BlackBerry API 7.1.0.). Hopefully, there will be an FM Radio API for Android soon.

You will also find quite a lot of info about FM Radio hacking on Android on this site: http://www.xda-developers.com/.

How to make an FM Radio Application in Android

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