Palo Alto, CA - Apr 19, 2011 - Perhaps as many as 15 years ago, broadcasters (especially those that were on the AM band only) were bemoaning the fact that car radios had two bands -- AM and FM -- and that many users were ignoring the AM band altogether. The ideal radio, it was thought, tuned through AM and FM on the same band, thus integrating the two services. Fast forward to 2011; now "content providers" (as we broadcasters like to call ourselves) are wishing that the end-user's device, whatever it is, would be completely agnostic to the physical media that relayed the content; AM, FM, and Internet streaming would thus be on the same level playing field.

A new app for the Windows 7 phone goes a long ways toward doing just that, since it has an on-board FM tuner built-in. TuneIn Radio (formerly RadioTime) has developed an app for the Windows phone. The TuneIn Radio app allows the user to choose to use the device's FM tuner when the terrestrial radio signal is stronger.

In light of all the media attention garnered by the iPhone and iPad, one wonders what the future of the Windows 7 phone is. Research firm Gartner has examined this question.

Microsoft recently entered in to an agreement with Nokia, so that future Nokia phones will use Microsoft as the OS on Nokia phones. Gartner is predicting that the Windows platform will be the third most used by 2013, and the second most-used by 2015 (with an estimated market share of 19.5 percent).