Apple's new iPod Nano will include a built-in FM receiver that will allow you to pause and rewind live radio, which is great news for the industry, both commercial and the BBC - but puts another question mark against digital audio broadcasting (DAB).
The new range of iPod Nanos, unveiled by Apple yesterday, will also include a tagging device allowing users to tag a song they like and then preview and purchase it when they sync to iTunes. Marvellous.
Having just invested in an iPhone, I have mixed feelings about this innovation. I'm not going to shell out for a Nano as well, although I can download an app allowing me to listen to some - but not all - of my favourite radio stations on my iPhone.
It is exactly the type of thing that was being speculated about two years ago - we were obviously ahead of our time - except back then all the talk was about digital.
As the industry gears up for the next big marketing push for DAB, the advent of the "FM iPod" is not exactly the leg-up they were looking for. Quite the opposite.
Pause and rewind is the sort of "added value" that gives DAB the upper hand over analogue FM. Now that advantage has been wiped out, for Nano owners at least.
And it again raises questions about the wisdom of the government's plans to remove all national radio stations, and most of the big regional ones, from FM by 2015. They clearly haven't told Steve Jobs.
As James Cridland, the BBC's former executive product manager for audio visual products, points out on his blog, today is a "good day for radio". But not, I would suggest, for DAB.
