It sounds to me like no one has defined the approp...

2009-11-26T00:09:15.243-05:00

It sounds to me like no one has defined the appropriate API's to properly abstract the hardware from applications -- or else no one is paying attention to them.

To be frank, that's the point of an operating system. An operating system is supposed to handle the particulars of hardware and provide a standardized interface to the software applications. It's how both Windows and Linux are able to run on a plethora of disparate hardware platforms in the non-embedded world. (It's also why my application doesn't need to know whether I'm running on 10Mbit wired ethernet, a WiFi network, or a WiMax network. I simply need to open a TCP/IP socket and the operating system's underlying drivers handle the lower networking layers for me.)

The differing screen sizes is a bit more challenging, but that's only because those of us who write software on embedded systems like to hard code everything for our device's display. But it doesn't have to be that way. Yes, it will cost a bit in terms of execution speed. But unless they're trying to do something graphically intensive (as opposed to trying to display text and images), that should be fairly negligible.

Comments on Igneous Quill: Android Could Have a Problem

It sounds to me like no one has defined the approp...