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I actually like the reflash of the iLiad better than that of the Sony or Kindle
On to the issue of development:
Refreshes, Refreshes, Refreshes. That alone is the biggest issue in porting applications to the iLiad. Right now, this is done on a per application basis because doing so in an external library would be very difficult. For example, you wouldn't want to do a full refresh if the user has only typed a letter. But you would want to do so if the contents of the screen has changed, or to clear away the ghosting. An external application would have to know how much of the screen has changed in order to determine what kind of refresh is being performed.
The problem is compounded furthermore with writing on the screen. The standard "typing" refresh isn't quick enough to draw lines to the screen. In this case, changes need to be made directly to the framebuffer. This is why you haven't seen a working port of any of the linux note taking apps.
In addition, the iLiad has a very specific user interface which hasn't be made available to developers. This means that any ported application uses the standard gtk theme, instead of a flat, iLiad looking image. That isn't *that* big of a deal right now, as outside of iRex, there is only one program designed specifially for the iLiad community by a 3rd party (the FeedBooks application).
That brings me to the last problem. All external iLiad porting and developent is done by only a handful of people. This is little more than a hobby, and you won't find many *serious* developers in the forum. Perhaps it's because the iLiad wasn't marketed as an open platform, or maybe it's cost prohibitave for a lot of people. Either way, the iLiad community doesn't have near the numbers that the Nokia's have.
Hopefully once we get the community website setup, we can get serious people working on iLiad development... Time will tell.
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