I previously worked for a (small-time) handset manufacturer, and have done product testing for several others. I also have friends who work or have worked for some of the major names.
None of the companies have any clue whatsoever when it comes to UI design, software development, etc. The majority of the process is usually centered around putting some kind of brand-specific skinning on the OS as a "differentiator". It only gets worse when the carriers request their own specific branding on a handset. Usually the designs are put together by one or two designers and the emphasis is often on visual impact as opposed to usability. Flash tends to win over function, and often times things are redesigned for no good reason between product releases.
It's no surprise then that Apple is eating their lunch, at least they have a coordinated effort.
>They waste million of dollars thinking CrapCase and other "irrational" tools are ok.
Oh God, yup. The last place I interned for was using CVS, and the devs wanted to switch to Git. This desire percolated up a few levels, and a couple months later it's announced that we're switching to ClearCase. Two months before a major version of our product drops. Cue 3 weeks of mayhem as ClearCase manages to mangle everything, then the same people who made the ClearCase decision are furious that we are so far behind target and begin to "question the competency" of the devs at out site.
Yeah, thanks but I'm staying the hell away from HW companies in the future.
Why would the developers even go along with such a switch? Why don't they just create facts? Put up a centralized git repository somewhere and get coding?
The repo was being monitored; lack of activity on it would have raised eyebrows.
But hey, ClearCase is from IBM, so it has to be good, right? It was made by a team of experts, not some pudgy Finn. Clearly the codemonkeys just don't understand business, which is why we're building our web app in Java over their objections. Java is what Enterprise uses, and this is Enterprise software. Makes perfect sense.
Could you setup a mirroring system? Run a nightly cronjob that takes all commits to the git repository and syncs them to ClearCase? I've never used ClearCase, so I have no idea if this would work, but a similar system is used at Google where we have a wrapper around git that creates a Perforce changelist out of our commits.
And then some manager will find out and fire someone for wasting valuable company time and resources hacking on some irrelevant side project or hacking the companies security system or something.
Some places are just broken politically and no amount of technical cleverness can fix it. At places like that your only option is to learn to live with it, learn to play the political game or quit.
The CC command line tool is a total piece of crap but it has all functionalities
So theoretically it could work, but you would waste some time
Not to mention people related to CC are usually rude, ignorant, afraid to be made redundant so they rely on blackmail and threats to keep their position (yes, I'm generalizing)
In addition, I haven't found CM to be perfect and awesome either. It has things I find annoying or frustrating, and I don't particularly think its "look" is much better than some of the manufacturer's. Just my opinions though.
Do carriers? The contract I signed with AT&T was pretty onerous.
For you. For AT&T, it says they can come into your house and take any and all children of yours whenever they want. They wrote the contract and you have no choice but to agree, so they're certainly not going to go out of their way to be nice to you. (Their logo is the frickin' Death Star, after all!)
i remember at a conference (ETech, a while ago) there was a geohackers BOF and some dude from a handset mfg said they wanted to work with us, and the way to do so would be to create proposals for them to evaluate, and then they would decide.
they actually told a roomful of hackers to ask permission.
One thing I learned from HW manufacturer is that they absolutely don't get SW development
Zero, zilch, nada, NULL
Hence, this results in wasting (a lot of) time with BS projects, lots of NIH syndrome, design by committee, etc
I've heard and seem a lot of stories, I've worked in certain companies and I vowed never to work again there.
They waste million of dollars thinking CrapCase and other "irrational" tools are ok.
And that's why Cyanogenmod releases upgrades quicker than the manufacturers.