Re:Doing Laundry on Campus Without a Phone
by ryandrake on Saturday September 02, 2023 @03:32PM
(#37364754)
In general, companies that are hardware manufacturers provide the worst software, with one or two obvious exceptions everyone here can point out.
Embedded software is the absolute worst. Think about the UI of your TV or car radio (unless it's from one of the few manufacturers who have wisely given up on software and licensed theirs from Google or something): My old Toshiba plasma TV's UI looks like literal clip art, with obvious "polish" problems like some of the icons being 32x32 and others being 31x31--that kind of shit. Fixed width text font. UI responds 3 seconds after you press the remote button. The full color palette is: 0xff0000, 0x00ff00, 0x0000ff, 0xffff00, 0xff00ff, 0x00ffff (very creative). The audio feedback that happens when you navigate a menu is 500-1000ms off from the animation. It's a total mess.
These companies look at "Software" as just another line item on the BOM, like a nut or a screw. Source it from the cheapest supplier you can find, and scoop it into the product somewhere down the assembly line. The idea that software is actually a vital part of the creative industrial design of their products is foreign to them.
Embedded software is the absolute worst. Think about the UI of your TV or car radio (unless it's from one of the few manufacturers who have wisely given up on software and licensed theirs from Google or something): My old Toshiba plasma TV's UI looks like literal clip art, with obvious "polish" problems like some of the icons being 32x32 and others being 31x31--that kind of shit. Fixed width text font. UI responds 3 seconds after you press the remote button. The full color palette is: 0xff0000, 0x00ff00, 0x0000ff, 0xffff00, 0xff00ff, 0x00ffff (very creative). The audio feedback that happens when you navigate a menu is 500-1000ms off from the animation. It's a total mess.
These companies look at "Software" as just another line item on the BOM, like a nut or a screw. Source it from the cheapest supplier you can find, and scoop it into the product somewhere down the assembly line. The idea that software is actually a vital part of the creative industrial design of their products is foreign to them.