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<title>blog.jimbo.org.uk - Comments on From the &quot;pointless limitations&quot; department...</title>
<link>http://blog.jimbo.org.uk/archives/2005/03/from_the_pointl_1.shtml</link>
<description><![CDATA[Why do manufacturers of high tech gadgets insist on imposing arbitrary limits on their functionality, for no discernable reason? I'm not talking about limiting the amount of memory in a device to lower the cost, or anything, but about limitations that someone had to go out of their way to add to the devices' firmware... A few weeks ago, my housemate Chris had a great idea &mdash; rather than spend valuable beer money on a cool ringtone for his phobile moan, he recorded the introduction and theme tune to "The A-Team" directly from the TV, using his phone's mic. Excellent. When I tried to do something similar, I found that while my T610 (allegedly a decent handset) has the ability to record up to 30 seconds of audio and store it in some suitable format, it is not then able to make this file into a ringtone. Sigh. It clearly has all the requisite bits of hardware and software, but for some reason Sony-Ericsson have elected not to allow their customers to do this; I can only assume the mobile networks like the revenue stream from people buying ringtones, and lean on the manufacturers to leave out features like this. Meanwhile, clc seems to have found just as pointless a limitation of his iPod &mdash; one which doesn't even merit a cynical explanation like the one above. I guess all hardware really does suck. Oh, except my new iAudio M3 :-)...]]></description>
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<lastBuildDate>Wed, 23 Mar 2005 03:55:09 +0000</lastBuildDate>
<pubDate>Fri, 09 Mar 2007 01:33:30 +0000</pubDate>
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