Just had an email from Steve Green of Digital Radio Tech that says; "you were right about DAB coming to the iPod". A press release from Frontier Silicon says it has teamed up with Roberts Radio "to develop a DAB/FM plug-in accessory that allows listeners to tune into their favourite radio stations using an iPod. The plug-in, which is the first of its kind, measures just 52.4 x 32.0 x 8.1 mm and is based on Frontier Silicon's Kino 2 DAB IC."
It says "Roberts will launch the product in October 2007 at an RRP of £49.99."
The Kino 2 chip could also support DAB+. However, Steve says: "I've just contacted Frontier-Silicon, and they said this device won't support it, because DAB+ requires additional memory to store the AAC+ and error correction coding software." Since there are no DAB+ broadcasts yet, Roberts has opted to keep the price down.
This is a blow to my theory that suppliers would be able to include DAB+ for little or no extra cost. However, this game will take ages to play out, and memory gets cheaper every year.
