Lingo iMini DAB/FM iOS pocket tuner

DAB radio: always a contentious topic given its cost and varying fidelity. But a DAB radio accessory for iOS devices and for £55 too? You might as well skip the rest of this waffle and head for the comments now. Go on, you know you want to. Lingo iMini DAB/FM receiver for iOS Lingo's iMini: puts DAB on your pad Ah, didn’t …

[D@v3]

not bad

Might be tempted, just not really sure where i'd use it

[Anonymous Coward]

I have absolutely no idea why anyone would buy this when you can stream about a million radio channels from the Internet using the TuneIn Radio app??

[Neil Dawson]

not bad but...

If this supported RadioDNS.

http://radiodns.org/

...it would be awesome

[Eponymous Cowherd]

Several issues here

It looks like it would be easy to knock off.

You can't use your dock.

Decent stand-alone DAB/FM radios available for less and won't cane your phone battery.

[Anonymous Coward]

It relies on Apple’s standard 30-pin dock...

Which standard is that then? I think you meant 'proprietary'.

[RichyS]

Standard

Standard as in 'de facto'. The same sort of standard that makes the proprietary MS Word '.doc' the standard text document for companies all over the world.

Just because you don't like it, doesn't stop it being true.

[Anonymous Coward]

Can anyone use this 'de facto' port? Something becomes 'de facto' because everyone uses it without it having to be made the official solution. Currently only Apple can use the port.

Lots of tablets and phones would love to use it as it would open up all the add-ons from the Apple world, but they are prevented, so it's not 'de facto'. It's propitiatory and closed.

(Even Microsoft don't stop anyone from writing a program to create their own '.doc' files).

[Robert Carnegie]

Can you make and keep and store digital recordings of radio programmes?

I'm guessing a great big No. I'd be interested if Yes. Then I'd have to get an iPhone, Pad, or Pod of some kind, evidently. (Would I?)

[Robert E A Harvey]

shazam?

Why would you need to identify tunes? don't DAB stations put the title in the data stream? And don't the inane^W DJs tell you what they are playing these days?

[RichyS]

I don't get it.

I may not be the target audience for this as I have no DAB radios other than the one that came with my car (handy for 6 Music and R5 Sports Extra for clear and uninterrupted by shipping forecast TMS).

But, if I'm using my iPhone or iPad, a great app like Tune Radio (for a quid or so) let's me stream all the DAB stations and more. And record them. Works fine for me on 3G too. So why pay extra for this?

[Anonymous Cowbard]

@ RichyS

3G is all well and good but if you want to listen to digital radio in a non-3G area this is a good alternative.

My commute home takes me out of 3G coverage and I'd rather stick pins in my eyes than listen to TMS on medium wave.