While most iPhones have the capacity to receive AM/FM frequency, there is still no application to allow the device to do so, until now rumour has it.

According to close sources, Apple is developing an FM tuner app for iPhone and iPod touch users.

It is believed the app is mostly done at this point, and will likely take cues from the FM tuner interface of the recently introduced fifth-generation iPod nano.

The iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, and second-gen iPod touch all use a Broadcom radio chip that combines low-power WiFi, Bluetooth, and FM capabilities.

The newest iPod touch uses the newer chip which also has FM receiving.

The original iPhone and iPod touch used chips from Marvell for WiFi, and the iPhone had a separate chip for Bluetooth, so those devices wouldn’t work with an FM tuner app.

While FM tuners have been features of a wide variety of other media players, they have never featured significantly in the Apple line-up. A separate FM tuner accessory Apple introduced in 2006 never sold in significant numbers and was quietly discontinued.

However, Broadcom’s Chris Bergey said late last year that FM tuning is particularly popular in other areas of the world, such as India; there phones with FM outnumber those with Bluetooth, for instance.

Since the hardware already has the capability, and the software design is most of the way there with work done on the iPod Nano, it would be relatively trivial for Apple to offer up an FM tuner app for the iPhone OS platform.

Integrating iTunes purchasing would also be the sort of compelling value add that should give Apple a good reason to make it happen.

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