Monday, May 7, 2007
Why Can't Windows Mobile Phones Record Phone Calls?
Posted by Jason Dunn in "ARTICLE" @ 09:00 AM
"I've long been looking for a solution to record my phone calls (for archiving for my electronic diary database - it's just fun to listen to, say, calls you've made twenty years ago. Yeah, I've archived my calls back even then - then, onto audio tapes, with my self-built automatic call recorder circuitry and automatic tape recorder controller). As you may already know, except for some (in Europe / the States, rare, Asia-only Gigabyte models) NONE of the current Windows Mobile Pocket PC's (and only some MS Smartphone models) support this. It's just not possible to record the other party, let alone directly saving the GSM-based encoded stream to greatly preserve sound quality while keeping the same low speed (without recompressing it), just like how the vast majority of non-Windows Mobile-based call recorders do on both Symbian and in many "dumb" phones like the Sony-Ericsson t68i and the t610.
Werner Ruotsalainen, better known in the Windows Mobile world as "Menneisyys", has posted an article talking asking the question why Windows Mobile is the only phone OS that doesn't allow for easy phone conversation recording. I've heard the issue raised at MVP Summit meetings and Mobius events, and the answer is always the same: legal reasons. Since recording a phone conversation isn't something I've needed to do every often, I honestly never gave it much thought.
Ruotsalainen's article has made me re-think this stance: if Symbian phones can do this task, and they're being sold in great numbers in the USA, then how much of a legal issue can this really be? And if 38 states allow it without consent, and only 12 do not, clearly the majority of the country supports this scenario. Windows Mobile phones are sold all over the world of course, so even if the issue is United States law, why wouldn't Microsoft include basic support that the USA carriers would just exclude? On-device voice mail is also a feature I've seen on other device that Windows Mobile lacks - and it never occurred to me until now that the reason we don't have it is because of this call recording issue.
Werner Ruotsalainen, better known in the Windows Mobile world as "Menneisyys", has posted an article talking asking the question why Windows Mobile is the only phone OS that doesn't allow for easy phone conversation recording. I've heard the issue raised at MVP Summit meetings and Mobius events, and the answer is always the same: legal reasons. Since recording a phone conversation isn't something I've needed to do every often, I honestly never gave it much thought.
Ruotsalainen's article has made me re-think this stance: if Symbian phones can do this task, and they're being sold in great numbers in the USA, then how much of a legal issue can this really be? And if 38 states allow it without consent, and only 12 do not, clearly the majority of the country supports this scenario. Windows Mobile phones are sold all over the world of course, so even if the issue is United States law, why wouldn't Microsoft include basic support that the USA carriers would just exclude? On-device voice mail is also a feature I've seen on other device that Windows Mobile lacks - and it never occurred to me until now that the reason we don't have it is because of this call recording issue.
