I’m probably going to go off on a few tangents here so apologies in advance.

Ok, so…. I won’t ever get an iPad for one very simple reason. I don’t need to.
I have a PC for programming and doing digital design, an xbox for games and a huge cinema system for movies and music. All of those things I do from my own home. An iPad would satisfy none of them. At home, why would I hold an iPod when I can chill out on my sofa and do the same things, but in a more comfy and practical way?

To me, having an iPad makes no sense and would be just a huge waste of money. Yes, it means I can still do things on the go, but that really means that I’d have my head down in a screen even though I’m out and should be socialising with my friends. If I took an iPad out with me then (to me) it’s a sign of my ignorance towards the friends I’ve come out to meet. Why would I still need my online connection if I’m suppose to be out with my friends? I guess my way of thinking is related to my age and my understanding of how life was before the Internet boom.

It’s why I also notice other things now as I travel….iPods (and other music devices).
More and more people walking around with their earphones on, completely oblivious to anyone around them. It’s a sign (in my opinion) that people are so content with their virtual online worlds that meeting or interacting with real physical people has become more difficult and ‘strange’. They have no need to try, so they stay in their own world even when they are out.

But it doesn’t mean the iPad won’t satisfy everyone else. If you don’t do design work, don’t need to type lots (sitting in a comfortable position), you don’t mind watching movies on a tiny screen and you just like browsing the net for Facebook and Flickr (and similar sites), then an iPod is going to be the most amazing thing in the world to you. It’s a great versatile toy and it’s many many toys all in one.

Cool or Tool?
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At the end of the day, the iPad will be bought as a cool tool, even if it’s not bought as a means of satisfying a genuine need. The next gen of teen/young adults has discovered that it’s not only Rebook trainers, Lynx and having a photo of yourself looking up at the camera, that makes you cool. iPods can make you cool too because TV said so.

In my day we were cool because we had Yo-Yos!

Adam

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As an aside, if you’ve not seen a movie yet called Idiocracy, I would recommend watching it. Yes, it’s completely daft BUT I believe it paints a quite believable future, at least as far as how people will become dependant on technology, hand holding and buttons. It also covers the interesting idea that fewer and fewer people will exist with a high level of intelligence but those who are, drive the technology that everyone else depends on!

You may want to access the terminal from a media consumption device, but I sure don’t. If I need the terminal, I need a COMPUTER, not a media device. As to the development of apps that are for jailbroken devices, you suggest there isn’t a market. It that so? Cydia has a pretty good number of users, and you KNOW a good number of people are jailbreaking–WOZ jailbroke an iPhone ON TV, for the gods’ sakes, after first chiding Kathy Griffin that “Some people would criticise you for not having hacked it.” He then hacked the phone using the online tool, AppSnap. He’s been photographed using other hacked iPhones as well. SO quit whining. You CAN develop for the iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch if you want to, either with the economically-priced SDK and the App Store approval process, or through the many sites selling apps for jailbroken iPhones, like Cydia.

Read on my iPad.

I was really exciited when the iPhone came out. Only to have my exubrance dashed by Apple not allowing any I/O other than their “APPROVED interfaces”, no hooks to the cron deamon or any way to make their incatation of Unix useful for anything outside their appoved methods.

I could understand limiting the power of Unix box hard wired to cell phone but that dog won’t hunt for the iPad. Here is a 1 GHz RISC processor with as much as 64 gigabytes of SRAM doing little morn than good programer can on the flat side of Intel 386. A 386 won’t run Apples bloated verson of C but, I expect it runs Unix and ANSI C like mad just like all its outher proucduts.

As long as Apple only sees the guy or gal the buys stuff at the Apple Store or iTunes as their market they leave a really big hole for competition to walk though. The eclusivity of iTunes will be fleeting. The EU aniti trust won’t allow that very long. Google has more experience with making deals for copyrights than anyone and they like that market too.

While Apple’s tight control of their user interface has become so ingrained in the Mac user they demand it. The new Mac user like me is not so loyal or so willing to accept the dictates of the mother ship.

Damn few programers come from the retail user world. We use computers to fill a need. If we can buy software to do what wes want it is a wast of time to wtrite software to do it. Programmers come from people that have problems they can’t get software to do. From what I seen of the limits on he iPad I will find a friendlier hardware supplier

. I won’t make the same mistake twice. I was very disappointed that Apple sold a Unix computer with a ?GPS, camera, Blue Toot, WiFi, Cell phone, running a 300 MHz ARM processor with no way to hook up a keyboard, get to the command line, no access to cron & on & … on. JailBreak will get me in but there is no real market software I write that way. This time I will look for Linux look alike for the iPad and port and software that looks good back to iPad it will work in the box Apple apple allows at the time.

All I can say is APPLE doesn’t suck as bad as Microsoft. At least when my Mac locks up I don’t loose more than a few seconds of work in BBEdit and the Time Machine seem to work. I can also run several combinations of Unix, Linux0, Linux1. Linux2, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 98 and OS X at the same time. Running Unix the Mac is also a lot faster on big data sets with some combintion of OS X, Windows and Linux all working on the same data.

Red

Don and Jed: totally agree.

Anyone who’s worried about this should create a seductive set of web pages to lead vulnerable youngsters into the world of software development.

Admittedly, the iPad doesn’t lend itself to low-level experimentation (C, hardware, etc.), and doesn’t provide an on-ramp to Unix-style OS skills, etc. But if someone grows beyond the browser environment they can get a laptop that runs Linux for a few hundred dollars, or likely for free as a hand-me-down.

I think Zittrain’s thesis is misplaced. In computing, innovation can happen at many levels of abstraction. True, the iPad might thwart innovation at a low level of innovation. However, the iPad might foster innovation at higher level of abstraction.

These kids today have it easy.