The most recent rumor from Apple Valley is that Apple will wake up the dormant FM Radio capability inside the iPhone and iPod touch. The rumor comes from 9to5mac.com who said that the FM Radio functionality will be similar to that of the new iPod Nano.

Some of the features it is said to contain include:

Pause and Play functionality for live radio

One click access to song info (for radio stations that support song tagging)

Ability to buy any song that plays on the radio and is available on iTunes

I am not too sure if any of the South African radio stations have tagging enabled in the RSA but this can be interesting for iPhone and iPod Touch users.

“Apple’s iPods and iPhones have been able to receive FM radio signals for some time now. The latest generation of iPhone and iPod touch can even broadcast FM signal, for instance to a car stereo. The ability of the iPhone and iPod touch to receive FM signals has been used solely in the implementation of the Nike+ ecosystem to this point.”

Apple has opted to activated dormant hardware after sale before. Apple didn’t enable Bluetooth in its 2nd generation iPod touch until 9 months after it was released. The addition of an FM radio would eliminate the advantage from Microsoft’s ZuneHD.