I may be paranoid, but I have a suspicion. Probably because I can see doing this myself, strictly as a matter of a business decision. The decision is to not make a software product as good as it could possibly be because I want to protect a more expensive and higher quality and higher profit product that I produce.
I am thinking about the consumer market photographic camera business.
All the major camera makers have dozens of camera styles in their product lines. All kinds of features and gimmicks are available. Now that cameras are digital, it is very easy to change a software value and create a camera with different abilities.
I don’t know if there is a moral issue here. The customer isn’t forced to purchase anything. There is still a relationship of you get what you pay for. A totally new definition of “ownership” had to be created for intellectual property rights.
I have purchased CAD/CAM software at a certain price and I know the code that is in the program I installed on my computer has every available advanced feature already built into it. If I want to go from a 3 axis version to a 4 axis, I simply pay more money and certain features get “turned on”. Those features were always there. Didn’t I already own those features? Today the answer is no.
So as a camera maker, what incentive is there for me to supply software performance for a camera in say the $1000 price range that is equivalent to my $4000 product? I am thinking there is no incentive.
But what if the difference in the quality of a photograph a camera can produce is not determined by limitations of the hardware but can be and is controlled deliberately by the “soft” settings or choices in computer algorithms? I am not hinting better code is already in there just waiting to be turned on, but the supplied code was perhaps “de-tuned” to limit results. Many digital cameras are designed to have the software upgraded.
I know for my Volkswagen GTI, 200 hp turbo, automobile, I can purchase a software “chip” upgrade (not from VW) that can give another 100 horsepower from my engine. No hardware changes, just a change in software.
Is there anyone building hot-rod “chips” for my digital camera? It could happen. We just need open source software in our cameras or a few dedicated hackers… 🙂
“Hey dude, can you jailbreak my Sony NEX-5 camera?”