

 On the iPad - twampss
http://al3x.net/2010/01/28/ipad.html

======
swannodette
"The thing that bothers me most about the iPad is this: if I had an iPad
rather than a real computer as a kid, I’d never be a programmer today."

I simply do not buy this. A tinkerer is born a tinkerer. I had a Mac in the
late 80s and throughout the 90s and the only way to program the damn thing was
to beg my folks to shell a couple hundred bucks for CodeWarrior and another
couple hundred bucks for Apple Reference books.

The dev tools today for the iPad cost $99, the reference is free with the
tools. If I was a father right now and I had a ten year-old-tinkerer I'd buy
one, give it to my kid, get them a dev account and say, "Hack the shit out of
this thing."

EDIT: "A tinkerer is born a tinkerer + some parental encouragement". When my
parents (who at the time had little money, father was in the Army) bought our
first Apple IIgs, he said "You should learn how to write your _own_ programs
for it". I didn't even know what programming was. But this was enough to make
me hunt school libraries for books on BASIC.

~~~
prospero
_The dev tools today for the iPad cost $99, the reference is free with the
tools._

And how much for the computer which is capable of running those dev tools? The
point is that the iPad isn't a device which can be used to modify itself, and
if it entirely supplants other computers in a household, your experience
becomes completely dictated by what other people have created.

~~~
jstevens85
As the iPad exists today, it's impossible to use without a laptop/desktop. If
one day it evolves to the point of being a standalone device, I imagine that
it may also be capable of running its own dev tools.

~~~
prospero
Why is it impossible to use by itself? You can browse the internet, you can
buy media off of iTunes, you can edit documents, and you can send email.

The point is that the iPad _is_ sufficient for the average user, but it
prevents the graduation to power user by poking around and learning how things
work. I very much doubt self-hosted development will ever be made available.

~~~
jstevens85
I'm guessing that you'll need to sync it to iTunes first before you can use
it, but I may be wrong.

~~~
grhino
With the iPhone, you need an iTunes account. I don't know if you can set that
up on your iPhone. You can go without ever syncing to your desktop. You might
need to sync to the desktop to update the iPhone OS, though.

Of course, since your iPhone/iPod/iTouch data isn't in the cloud, you will
need to sync to the desktop to backup. Not sure what happens if you sign up
for MobileMe.

------
andrewljohnson
Well, this is the very last iPad article I read. There has not been a single
person who has had a useful comment.

Either you see the simple computer as some harbinger of the death of the PC,
or you are an Apple fanboy who thinks the thing is a magic wand.

Guess what everybody. It's neither.

The iPad will have zero effect on the computing philosophy of the world. The
world is no more open or closed than it used to be. And the iPad is just
another (probably great, as usual) gadget from Apple.

All of you who are writing these windy pieces about the ramifications of the
iPad have just been swept up in a mighty PR storm. Even those decrying the
device are just helping Apple.

~~~
DannoHung
Here, I got something for you: I was thinking about it earlier, and I was
wondering how I'd get something to print from the iPad, being that there's no
normal USB connection. And it hit me in the face: Why would I want to print?
If it's something I want to give someone else, I'll send it to them through
email. If it's something that I'd want to refer to later, I'd just have my
iPad with me later.

The iPad kills a lot of the reason for having paper.

~~~
joubert
I already don't print.

(uhm, except once every 2 years when I renew my apt lease).

~~~
nir
A plane/train/bus/show ticket?

An article you want to go over, marking and adding notes (my wife does this
sort of thing..)

A paper due to be submitted to someone who will mark & write notes and don't
want to have to print it themselves?

Some reading material for locations where you don't want to take your $500
gadget?

~~~
joubert
Plane: e-ticket. I can't remember when last I had a paper ticket. I fly a lot.

Train: subway card; on-demand ticket dispenser at station. Even when I use the
Acela I don't need to print anything.

Show: uhm, they should accept electronic display (then I'll use my iPhone -
last concert was Kylie Minogue, and I got a paper ticket on the 2nd hand
market)

Article: physical magazine or online reading. I never make notes on the
physical article (then I'd have to have a filing system to keep it)

Paper: send it to me in PDF or some other open format; I'll send review notes
back electronically.

Other reading material: books?

For some people it may be more convenient to print stuff, but not for me.
Paper => physical clutter.

~~~
holygoat
Um, you have to _print_ e-ticket boarding passes.

~~~
joubert
At the airport kiosk. I never print it myself.

------
wvenable
_Perhaps the iPad signals an end to the hacker era of digital history_

I disagree. We're in a time of change now -- very soon we won't be getting any
of media in the same old ways. TV will be replaced with digital streaming.
Music, for the younger generation, is already almost entirely digital. It's
even becoming perfectly reasonable to read books on digital devices now.

However, this digital future is not open to everyone. My parents have a hell
of time operating a computer and don't benefit from the latest streaming media
technologies. They get their music on CD's. They read books on paper. The
general purpose computer has failed them. Why shouldn't Apple fill this gap
between the TV and the computer?

I'm sure Apple fans will lament the loss of general purpose computing devices
from Apple. But it doesn't mean that the hacker era is dead. It just means
that most hackers may have to look somewhere else to find a product that suits
them.

------
butterfi
"Perhaps the iPad signals an end to the hacker era of digital history"

Perhaps the microwave signals an end to the chef era of cooking history.

~~~
holygoat
In a very real way, it did. Fifty or sixty years ago, people prepared food
largely from scratch. Now, a large proportion of the population of Western
nations prepares food by poking a hole in the plastic cover, closing the door,
and hitting "Express".

Similarly, one possible future prompted by the iPad is one where "chefs"
(hackers) do food preparation, but most people hit the power button.

Al3x is asserting that this is bad because there's not really much of a path
from 'here' to 'there'. You can't get started by running scripts in a shell,
or writing AppleScript, or whatever — you get apps from the App Store and
that's it.

~~~
adriand
> You can't get started by running scripts in a shell, or writing AppleScript,
> or whatever — you get apps from the App Store and that's it.

What if you get started by writing HTML and Javascript code into a nice online
editor - something like Bespin, or like those many different sites where you
can code in all sorts of languages using a web-based front-end - and you get
to publish your results to a web page and see the results immediately?

Does it get any easier than that?

Code - publish - save to home screen - "hey dad, check out this application I
just made!"

~~~
jodrellblank
My comment elsewhere: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1084669>

Agreed - maybe even adding to your homescreen as a javascript bookmarklet so
it's available offline.

Anyway, yes maybe the iPad wont inspire the next engineers, maybe it will
inspire the next authors/bloggers/photographers/web developers/content
creators.

~~~
stellar678
I think the iPad does its best to _not_ inspire creators of any type. It's a
device focused almost entirely on content consumption.

For a few years there Apple put much of their effort into creating tools that
gave more people access to the means of content production.

Now that they own major channels of media distribution (more all the time with
the introduction of "xyz store"), their effort is focused on promoting content
consumption much more than content production.

~~~
GHFigs
_It's a device focused almost entirely on content consumption._

So is a book.

~~~
butterfi
and television... and movie projectors...

------
jazzychad
"...if I had an iPad rather than a real computer as a kid, I’d never be a
programmer today."

Whoa now. If I were a kid (and a tinkerer) and saw an iPad, I would
immediately think, "how can I make something to run on this??" and go off and
learn. People still have to write apps for this thing. Just because you cannot
actively develop code on it does not mean that it will discourage young
tinkerers from learning about programming (for iPad or any other platform).

Apple will continue to create "full computers" if for no other reason than for
developers to create software for their "closed computers." That endgame would
be sad, but we won't witness the death of desktop/laptop computers.

If someone is so concerned about teaching programming using the iPad, could
one not write a BASIC app or some such? That's how I started learning to
program: on a VTech computer when I was a kid... it was basically a 1x20 LCD
output screen attached to a keyboard and 8 D-Cell batteries. It was mainly to
teach typing and had a few trivia games, but it also had a BASIC mode... a
very closed device with a BASIC app, sound familiar?

Also, let's not forget about young programmers learning how to do web-based
sites/apps. They are not as powerful/fast as native apps, but at least it is a
fast/easy/free way to start learning about programming/UI/etc and see it
realized on the newest/hottest device. That would be exciting to me as a kid.
Webapps are gateway drugs to native apps, trust me.

EDIT: found a picture of the old VTech computer -
<http://rasterweb.net/raster/computers/images/vtech.jpg>

~~~
eplanit
But Whoa on that 'Whoa'. There's a huge difference: the PC came with vendor
and third-party technical reference and programming manuals, BIOS references,
etc. It was a world that encouraged that kind of curiosity and creativity.

Now, a kid who does that is a "jailbreaker", and can be sued by Apple for DMCA
violations, etc.

My own personal Apple experience: Age 17, Apple II. Open the covers, look at
the circuitry, look at sample programs....a career began. New technologists
need as many legal reference books as they do technical reference books.
(Listen to the old guy refer to 'books') :-)

------
dschobel
_Wherever we stand in digital history, the iPad leaves me with the feeling
that Apple’s interests and values going forward are deeply divergent with my
own._

It's pretty odd to me how people have willingly accepted Apple's closed phone
and media player ecosystem without batting an eye-lash, but the iPad is just
outrageous as it encroaches on the PC.

Isn't the iPad just a logical continuation of Apple's trajectory of the last
decade?

~~~
tlack
But I think people understand the limits of a phone that means it might have
to be closed (after all, phones were closed for 15 years before we started
seeing "open" ones), and people saw the crazy copyright battles that went on
that lead to a big restriction in music copying freedom. On the other hand,
we've had programmable computers in our homes for 30 years.. we aren't ready
to give that up.

~~~
dschobel
I agree, and I'm not even trying to broach the politics of it being a closed
system.

I'm just wondering why lots of very tech savvy people have never minded their
ipods, cellphones, gaming consoles, etc, etc, etc being closed.

Maybe we should have been protesting those all along? Otherwise how do you
reconcile accepting all of those but rejecting this device?

~~~
orangecat
Opportunity cost. The iPhone, and the iPad to an even greater extent, have
lots of potential that can't be (easily/legally) utilized because of Apple's
control. That's not true of earlier phones, which were too technically limited
to do a whole lot even if they were open. It's also not true of consoles which
are just locked down PCs; there's not much you could do with a hacked Xbox
that you couldn't also do with a Mac mini.

------
eplanit
It's full-circle for Apple...they _never_ liked openness. The new iPad, with
all the closed-ness and proprietariness of it isn't shocking by how new it
is...but how oddly familiar it is. The Apple I knew (and resisted) from the
1980s to the mid 2000s was decidedly and deliberately closed, and in complete
opposition to the open systems and PC world. They might go back to that model,
at which point I'll go right back to not using any Apple products. The world
will (hopefully) always want open-ness. If Apple won't deliver that, someone
else will.

I'm less optimistic about consumers. The iPad might indeed be just what
'regular' consumers want....a new kind of fancy TV set. If so, the iPad is
just right for them.

The dark cloud for me is that parallel. When TV was introduced, people had
grand visions of an informed society, brought together by broadcasts of useful
and enlightening knowledge. It ended up being an ad-selling jukebox of near-
useless crap. We've projected the same (and even larger) hopes and dreams on
the new technology...but the trajectory seems all too familiar.

------
tlack
Beware, ranty comment follows:

There's another possibility here. Microsoft succeeded because of their focus
on developers and, to some extent, having an open ecosystem as long as it
suited their business goals. Forgetting this may be Apple's first slip up.

When OS X came out, tons of amazing apps came out that got many people
switching: if Apple turns off those same developers, the platform will weaken.

~~~
umtrey
People didn't switch to the Mac in droves when XCode came out, or when Apple
switched to OS X. It took a closed platform - a perfectly cultured, strictly
defined environment that was the iPod to start building the halo (and with
that, peoples' trust) towards the desktop/laptop Mac.

The iPhone didn't get the buzz or the acclaim because of the App Store - it
became thought of as a gift from the heavens! Steve has blessed us with this
new way to add our value to the closed product. Watch this happen in a
different extent with the iPad - something new will come up that will open it
up ever so slightly, adding new features where Apple doesn't have the creative
or physical capacity to develop.

~~~
orangecat
_It took a closed platform - a perfectly cultured, strictly defined
environment that was the iPod to start building the halo (and with that,
peoples' trust) towards the desktop/laptop Mac._

There are many plausible interpretations of history. Mine is that Mac market
share took off around the same time as the ascendancy of laptops, when screens
and mobile CPUs got to the point where they were no longer hugely inferior to
desktops. Mac laptop sales exploded because they're both more aesthetically
appealing (which matters more for laptops since other people see them) and
more functional (e.g. sleep and wireless actually work reliably).

I also think early alpha geek adoption of OS X helped to a lesser extent, both
in terms of the software they created and in recommendations to friends and
family. The iPhone/iPad may become like Windows in the 90s: what developers
write for during the day to pay the bills, while they do their hacking on
platforms that don't frustrate their desires.

------
nickbw
Hey, look, another doom and gloom article about the iPad and the end of open
development. Let's just try searching it for some keywords.

"web" ... not found

"browser" ... not found

"safari" ... not found

Yes, well.

When did native apps become the new vinyl records? "Sure, the web is great and
platform independent, but there's just more _soul_ in compiled code."

~~~
dschobel
No one gave a crap about applications on iphone before the app store. I have
yet to hear one story written about the mad rush to develop web applications
for the iphone.

The native app/app store combination is incontrovertibly the best way to
deliver applications and have your product found.

To pretend otherwise is disingenuous or simply naive.

~~~
nickbw
No one gave a crap about web apps for the iPhone because they all wanted to
develop apps that took advantage of phone features. (Which Apple has been
making more and more accessible to web apps anyway.)

The entire scare here is that the iPad will make _personal computing_ a closed
ecosystem. But the web is already where most people spend most of their
computer time, and Safari is an excellent and standards-complient browser.

No, you won't develop web apps _for_ the iPad. You'll develop web apps,
period. For the web. Which people will use on iPads and any other computer
they please.

The battle that matters is keeping web standards open. Consumer operating
systems can be as closed as they like, as long as they come with a compatible
browser.

~~~
dschobel
I understand why this position is theoretically reassuring as some sort of an
open portal onto the device but as a practical matter, web apps will be just
as irrelevant on the ipad as they are on the iphone.

~~~
nickbw
What are you basing that on?

To gold rush developers, perhaps. I spend most of my iphone time in safari,
and I don't think I'm alone. With a bigger screen I'd use it even more.

This thing is _good_ for the web, which is what we all need to be pushing. It
brings the web to the absolute front. This is "webTV" without all the stupid.
A computer that gives you a modern browser and then gets out of your way. The
fact that it also comes with a closed marketplace for proprietary apps is neat
for a few lucky developers, but hardly matters to the "future of computing".

You're worrying about how we can make "the device" free. Why? All the good
free stuff is, necessarily, device-agnostic, and this particular device gives
above average access to it.

------
philwelch
"The thing that bothers me most about the iPad is this: if I had an iPad
rather than a real computer as a kid, I’d never be a programmer today."

You could say the same about most PC's, actually. Time was, when you got a
computer it had a few programs and some sort of interpreter or compiler to
build your own program. Kids back then who got computers became programmers.
Kids today get computers and go on the internet, and there's enough there to
distract you that you don't get bored enough to install a compiler or
something.

Somehow, kids still get into programming anyway.

------
richcollins
I see this as a huge opportunity to have even more people try my creations.
Many of the people using iPhones and presumably iPads might never had
considered using a web app or traditional desktop app.

~~~
dannyr
I think Alex's main point is that this device is more for people who consume
rather than people who create.

~~~
richcollins
Yes and that is a good thing. We'll have our devices for creating as well.
It's not taking from us, its adding to everyone else.

------
jrwoodruff
The automobile has followed a similar trajectory. Early cars were 'open' in a
sense. Ford's Model T came with a small toolkit that contained all the tools
needed to repair it. Modern cars barely come with enough tools to change a
flat tire, but that hasn't stopped people from modding. Now, in addition to
boring out heads or swapping engines, modern street rodders can tweak the
fuel-to-air ratio with their laptops and install large-bore fuel injectors.

Hacking is something that will always be around. The iPad may - if successful
- usher in a new, possibly more mature era of computing, but people are still
going to be hacking the new devices. Just because it ain't your daddy's '69
Camaro doesn't mean it can't be modded for the drag strip.

------
drawkbox
Game consoles such as the XBOX, PS3 and now the iPad are always closed to help
create a market and for quality of service for the consumer device that they
are. The XBOX 360 is a bit more open than the others but I consider the iPad
much like a console with a specific purpose. It may just even challenge the
XBOX and PS3 as a game console much as the iPhone and iPod Touch have done. I
wish they were more open but openness also kills a bit of the market and
revenue possibilities. It sucks, but that is just the way it is.

Computers and hacker culture will still exist, they can pry that from my cold
dead hands. But while I am at it I will make some money in the market that
Apple is creating.

------
rythie
"Perhaps the iPad signals an end to the hacker era of digital history"

Couldn't you have said the same about the games console?

Even now I can't program my Wii or any other major console, and that's been
consistently true for over 30 years in games consoles. People knew then, just
as they know now, if you want to tinker you get a real computer.

The difference is, now you'll be able to program for the device your friends
use, where as programs I wrote on my PC stayed there and my friends with
consoles could never use/play them.

(though it would be nice if you could develop from Linux and Windows machines
too)

------
replicatorblog
If I had a book of art when I was a kid I wouldn't have learned to paint.

If I lived near a 5 star restaurant I would never have learned to cook.

If I could watch professional soccer I wouldn't learn to play.

There are dozens of closed systems, far harder to crack than the app store
that people bulldoze through because they love them

Well made products strike chords with people and excite them to the point
where they have to make something as nice, or better. If anything I think this
will hasten the transition from passive TV watching to interactivity which
will spur more hacking.

~~~
mcherm
Let's re-phrase those to keep the analogy a little more accurate:

If I hadn't been able to scribble in the margins of my art books, I never
would have learned to draw.

If all my meals had come pre-packaged and pre-approved by the food board with
raw ingredients prohibited, then I would never have learned to cook.

If I could watch professional soccer but was prohibited from playing myself
except on a regulation field (none of which were near my house) then I
wouldn't have learned to play.

The existence of closed systems doesn't harm learning. But if the tools we
give people are closed systems rather than open ones, that DOES harm
learning... folks will learn to work with tools others build but will NOT
learn to build it themselves. Which works great for becoming better consumers,
but perhaps isn't the best way to create a new generation of inventors and
innovators.

------
derefr
Remember: The iPad has an app store. Until that is no longer true, Apple will
always sell a product that runs XCode and _targets_ that app store, and
targets its own platform in order to develop new versions of XCode. Further,
because Apple doesn't want to deal with people pushing broken "test" updates
to their servers, they'll always have a Simulator program. And, even if every
other open platform disappears, you'll always be able to tinker inside that
simulator. /pragmatic pessimism

------
cpr
Well, let's find out just how true this is.

As someone else remarked, if you want to hack, get the dev kit and start
hacking (yes, $99/year; think of it as the tinkerer's software upgrade; we've
already hashed that out elsewhere on HN).

I also think some of us should start submitting things like Squeak ports (with
suitable UI upgrades for touch) as educational apps. I'll bet Apple would let
'em through, because they're no threat to the ecosystem.

I know there are simple programming languages out there on the App Store
(e.g., some calculators allow Fortran-like expressions, etc.), so there's not
really a ban on programming environments.

In fact, I think the ban in place on scripting language is precisely and
exactly to keep Flash off the machine, and I don't blame Apple for wanting to
keep that barrier high.

Anything else is unlikely to get stopped.

Yes, yes, it's sad that we have to go through the gatekeeper, etc. We've
hashed that out as well.

But I think in the end that tinkerers can win on this machine if they're
determined enough, even without jailbreaking.

~~~
orangecat
Apple has already rejected a Commodore 64 emulator because it allowed access
to the BASIC interpreter. Web apps are the only alternate execution
environment they'll allow.

~~~
cpr
OK, then someone needs to make a Squeak-like Javascript programming
environment, using only the built-in JS machinery.

Can't see how they could complain about that.

------
loup-vaillant
Trusted Computing.

I don't understand why no one coined the term yet. The IPhone, IPod Touch and
IPad are computers with some form of Trusted computing. The IPone and IPod
Touch weren't a big cause for concern because they weren't seen as fully
fledged computers (although technically, they are). The IPad, on the other
hand, leaves no doubt.

I think few disagree here when I say that Trusted Computing is a scandal, is
dangerous, and restricts our liberties. I think no one here would be willing
to buy a "Trusted Computing" desktop (except for cracking it).

Yet many people here don't see the exact same danger with the IPad. Some even
love it. Why? Maybe because the device looks new. Maybe because it is the
logical sequel of the IPhone (it feels like being slowly cooked with the
proverbial frog). Maybe it is because people feel safe when a big Gatekeeper
keeps bad things out. Maybe this is a combination of all those things.
Actually, I don't really know.

The IPad is Trusted Computing Without A Name. Accepting it is accepting
Trusted Computing. Your choice.

------
jsz0
If we want to blame someone for the emergence of walled gardens in technology
it should go squarely on the developers of malware, crackers, exploiters,
fraudsters, etc. They've made the open computing experience terrible for the
average user.

------
d0m
For me, the iPad isn't a computer. It's more of a really cool gadjet which
will let me see webpage, play games and watch video in a really cool way. It's
a tool I will use when eating and travelling.

It seems like people aren't arguing about the right thing. It's like saying
the iPhone sucks because you can't use vim, compile or use grep. Or that a
microwave sucks because you can't put a big cooking pot inside.

~~~
GeorgeTirebiter
So, you're going to lug and iPad AND your laptop when you travel? Seems like
fail to me. (Don't forget the chargers and cables you'll need, too).

------
chaostheory
"The thing that bothers me most about the iPad is this: if I had an iPad
rather than a real computer as a kid, I’d never be a programmer today."

Laptops and desktops aren't going away. Everyone is blogging like the end of
the hacker world is coming. Apple isn't forcing anyone to buy their products.
Worse comes to worse you can just build a PC if you don't like the convenience
of a great looking prison.

------
gfodor
By the sound of the web today, you'd think Apple pulled the plug on their
entire Mac product line and now only sells iPads and iPhones.

------
bliss
I half agree with the sentiment here, except... This thing is Gaol Bait if
I've ever seen it, I give it a week after launch before arbitrary code
execution is possible. Voila, now you can write your own software/tweak away
till your heart's content.

Seems an uncool thing to say, but you know what? I'm waiting in that line! I
think it looks great.

------
Kevin_Marks
Alex's fears remind me of 'real programmers' reactiosn to the Web when it came
out. The iPad is the Web made physical.

[http://epeus.blogspot.com/2010/01/ipad-is-web-made-
physical....](http://epeus.blogspot.com/2010/01/ipad-is-web-made-
physical.html)

------
jstevens85
Palm's Project Ares may be a sign of the future. Perhaps in the future
development will be hosted in the cloud rather than on the programmers unit
itself.

<http://ares.palm.com/Ares/about.html>

------
aantix
In an article that outlines how the iPad as doing "little to enable
creativity", I'm surprised that he didn't mention the irony of Apple's claim
yesterday that it's at "at the intersection of technology and the liberal
arts."

------
btucker
I don't buy it. We all know the thing'll be jailbroken in short order. If a
kid wants to tinker with an iPad I'm sure there will be just as many ResEdit-
esque opportunities to hack it.

------
alexqgb
Alex Payne seems not to have noticed the price. At $500, he can afford to buy
one of these _and_ a 24" iMac for less than the cost on a 13" MacBookPro. Or
he buy a Dell, or - really - anything he wants.

Then again, perhaps Alex Payne noticed some EULA fine print that says buying
one of these forces you to discard every other object you own with a chip
inside, and swear absolute allegiance to this ONE thing.

I suspect, instead, that Alex Payne is simply being an idiot.

------
morlockhq
That's why my kids are growing up with those clunky ugly computers that the
Mac loathes running a completely open operating system with every imaginable
programming language at their finger tips.

It won't be pretty, but neither was the Timex Sinclair 1000 that was the first
computer that I programmed with BASIC.

------
joe_the_user
I personally feel more optimistic than most commentators concerning what "most
people" will want.

I think that a large enough group of people will continue to want an
extensible machine that closed systems like the ipad will have trouble seeming
like a good deal - a Mac or a PC might a bit harder to use but it does have
that one extra program you have to use sometimes.

------
elliottkember
I keep hoping that escalators will replace stairs, but they never do.

------
gojomo
_The thing that bothers me most about the iPad is this: if I had an iPad
rather than a real computer as a kid, I’d never be a programmer today. I’d
never have had the ability to run whatever stupid, potentially harmful, hugely
educational programs I could download or write._

Bad assumptions.

Are we sure there won't be an 'XCode' or other dev environment for the iPad?
(See also, "YCRFS #5: Development on Handhelds"
<[http://ycombinator.com/rfs5.html>.](http://ycombinator.com/rfs5.html>.))

The MobileSafari browser alone is in many ways a richer programming
environment -- with Javascript, Canvas, network and storage facilities -- than
my Apple ][+ was with Applesoft Basic / Pascal / S-C Macro Assembler, or
anything included in the early days of the Mac.

And won't many curious kids jailbreak their iPad? (Did young Al3x ever run
pirated software on his 'hackable' machines? Does a bear shit in the woods?)

Given its larger format and educational uses, I also expect Apple will
eventually loosen the scripting/runtime limits on the iPad (as compared to the
iPhone), and possibly even offer an official 'jailbreak' for full access.
They've already broken the lock-to-single-carrier and required-service-plans.

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sahaj
remember this? <http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=iphone>

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CamperBob
_This is why I say that the iPad is a cynical thing: Apple can’t – or won’t –
conceive of a future for personal computing that is both elegant and open,
usable and free._

Sheesh.

It's not a computer. It's an appliance.

If you want an open programmable device, they will cheerfully sell you a Mac.

 _The thing that bothers me most about the iPad is this: if I had an iPad
rather than a real computer as a kid, I’d never be a programmer today. I’d
never have had the ability to run whatever stupid, potentially harmful, hugely
educational programs I could download or write._

And if I had a dishwasher rather than a real computer as a kid, I'd never be a
programmer today, either. Oh, wait. The two have nothing to do with each
other, except that they both contain microprocessors.

~~~
sofal
Is it really that hard to picture people using iPads instead of traditional
computers?

~~~
CamperBob
If a closed system ends up working better for some people, all I can say is...
whose fault is that?

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mdg
_The future of personal computing that the iPad shows us is both seductive and
dystopian._

Upon reading that, I was immediately reminded of this:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYecfV3ubP8>

minus the sledge.

~~~
bitwize
There was another article linked to here, said something like Apple was now
the face on the screen, not the woman with the hammer.

I think a lot of us recalled that old commercial...

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marshallp
"The thing that bothers me most about the iPad is this: if I had an iPad
rather than a real computer as a kid, I’d never be a programmer today."

Programming should be moving to the cloud anyway - heroku,appengine,aws is
where the hacker should be innovating - do programming through the web browser

you can have kids do simple programming in the webbrowser in javascript

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jonknee
I'd like to hear Steve Jobs' take on the matter. It's my opinion that this is
what he always wanted and if he made the Mac today it would be a walled garden
as well. When the phone came out he was called on it and had an absurd BS
answer, but one that's no longer applicable:

"You don’t want your phone to be an open platform," meaning that anyone can
write applications for it and potentially gum up the provider's network, says
Jobs. "You need it to work when you need it to work. Cingular doesn't want to
see their West Coast network go down because some application messed up."

<http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2007/01/6597.ars>

It would be curious to see what he has to say now. I admire the hell of the
guy, but it really seems like he doesn't understand the criticism because to
him the iPhone OS is the perfect environment. And as such, why would he let
anyone screw it up?

