Price of entry for tinkering is an Apple computer. I don’t care about App Store and sales and distribution; that is development, not tinkering.

The device can in no way bootstrap on its own; for ‘native’ applications, you need an x86 computer; for web applications, you need a web server elsewhere. This will become especially pronounced once the iPhone OS products shed their USB attachment for setup and syncing and can really become the only computer.

I have high hopes for the web, but I would prefer if it didn’t have to become the last frontier.

I’m locking the comments due to trackback and comment spam. Please email me with any concerns.

You say an iPad is like a microwave. I agree. You say a microwave can’t be tinkered with, I disagree. You can take it apart and do all sorts of weird shit with the electronics inside. What you do to a kid is, “here’s an iPad, change the battery”. Now that’s tinkering.

Did you miss the part where the tinkering is a side-effect? This is why it’s important to consider what the ubiquitous “easy computing” affords users. If (and only if) the prevalent easy computing (or whichever technology) affords tinkering, then society will reap the benefits. If tinkering is difficult, most will do something else, like watch YouTube videos on their iPad.

Since you, who most certainly is too busy to look for yourself by your invocation of revisionist histories, won’t look yourself, I’ll do it for you.

Luddites were people who were against progress for progresses sake when said progress was undeniably harmful to them, their families and their way of life. If you examine who’s mills they damaged, any who kept the same staff and upped the output were left alone, only those who used automation to reduce the workforce, and thus unilaterally decide to harm hundreds for the gain of one, were harmed. Now you know.

Grow up. The very complaints you are all registering, and the ones in the article, are the same ones people have raised against Apple since the first Mac. It’s too simple. It discourages innovation. Its a closed ecosystem. Look up your fcuking history for five minutes and you’ll see I’m correct.

You’re Luddites. Apple has been making the same idea for 30 years, easy computing for everyone. If you fear it, or you think it’s stealing your freedom fries, go elsewhere, but get it in your head: the damned thing isn’t made for your self indulgent tinkering. It’s made for you as a programmer to create something useful for others. And the platforms business model will evolve on it’s own. It’s not fascism. It’s one company.

If you think I’m not going deep enough, you’re right. I can’t probe all that deep into your paranoid imaginations.

But still there are some good news: There are alternatives and they will increase in the months to come.
for the time being just take a look at WePad (from Germany)

http://www.neofonie.de/pdf/neofonie_Factsheet_WePad_english.pdf

No advertising is intended but WePad’s a cool piece of Tablet PC

In the future, iPad might remain only as a marginal player in the Tablet PC market because of its arrogant restrictions, feature cutting, pricing policies, etc.