I don't understand why so many people are getting their panties in a knot because somebody is selling another non-general-use device with a processor.
And I know that hyperbolic rhetoric is fun, but let's be realistic. This is not undermining constructivist education, free culture, decentralized power or open systems in any meaningful way. If you really think it's accomplishing all that, go take your medication.
They actually are general-purpose devices, just deliberately limited by Apple. And I'm sort of ok with that; I'm not ok with them actively trying to stop you from removing those limitations on your own device, and calling you a criminal if you do. A seller trying to control how you use a product after you've bought it is an attack on your property rights.
This is not undermining constructivist education, free culture, decentralized power or open systems in any meaningful way.
Not by itself. But if closed devices like the iPad marginalize open devices, it becomes much easier to enforce user-hostile laws like CBDTPA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Broadband_and_Digital_...).
Without moving from my chair, I can see the following "general-purpose" computers that have been turned into controlled platforms.
A Directv HD DVR. A Sony Playstation. A Nintendo Wii. A TomTom GPS. A Samsung Television. A Treadmill. A BlackBerry. An iPod Touch. A Logitech Remote Control.
Precisely when should I be outraged that a device's capabilities aren't as general-purpose as you'd prefer? Heck, some of those devices (the television, GPS, and treadmill) even run Linux, yet are "crippled" by their manufacturers.
2) I'm not ok with them actively trying to stop you from removing those limitations on your own device,
Every trade has two sides. If a seller says "I will sell this to you for X if you agree not to do Y", that's a trade that you can either accept or reject. I fail to see why you, as a buyer, should have a right to demand that all rights transfer for a particular price if the seller doesn't want to transfer them all for that price.
So long as it's reasonably clear, and disclosed, I fail to see the problem.
3) "calling you a criminal" ... "easier to enforce user-hostile laws like CBDTPA"
Blaming a specific, unreleased non-general computer for laws you don't like is almost comic. I say 'almost' because it's really kind of annoying that you want to strip the rights of innovators to make what they want, in the name of 'freedom'.
If I want to wrap a processor, input method and display up in a manner that precludes using it for general purpose computing, as a means to solve a problem, I should have every right to do it and sell it. And you can buy it or not buy it.
But claiming it's responsible for every law you don't like, that it's an assault on property rights, and that it's an attack on constructivist education, free culture or decentralized power is utter and complete rubbish.
There is no particular person in the wrong, and I wouldn’t call it “evil,” exactly, that all of our devices are now impossible to repair for the average person, or even the enthusiastic hobbyist: clocks, cameras, radios, automobiles, telephones ... everything we use is becoming too complex for people to understand, except in a rough, schematic way.
This has tremendous benefits, as we can make more sophisticated devices, with useful features, and our lives become more comfortable. But you must admit it also has a down-side: we lose the ability to repair, to tinker, to reverse-engineer, to understand our surroundings, to personally implement incremental improvements, etc. Each user sacrifices a little bit of control for a little bit of comfort, incrementally.
The bit of knowledge we do have about science ends up coming from top-down mandated curricula, purely theoretical understanding learned through books, rather than from practical experience cooking our own meals, tending our own gardens, crafting our own furniture, fixing our own appliances.
I believe that computers are amazingly useful and powerful general-purpose devices, and understanding how to program them can be extremely empowering, because it allows people to solve their own problems. If all you have is an iPad and a DVR and a built-in car GPS and a cell phone, you can only use them on the problems that other people already solved, and if your problem is different, you’re shit out of luck.
That said, the fact that you seem to think that cooking meals, gardening, woodworking, and appliance repair are also impossible indicates to me that you're not really railing about the iPad.
These are great days to tinker. Just a slightly different kind of tinkering, is all.
There is only 2 way such a thing is possible.
(1) By default, the iPad let you write, compile and run programs in it without requiring any external device (like a iMac with XCode). That would mean it is easy to distribute such programs without going through the App Store, just like with a plain old desktop computer. I don't believe it for a second.
(2) You had jailbroken it.
Therefore, it is safe to say that by default, the iPad is not programmable.
If you're not, jacobulous's ridiculous hypothetical scenario isn't worth treating seriously. And I treated it with all the lack of seriousness I believed it to deserve.
Now, imagine that devices like the iPad are the majority (like Windows is now). Plus, viruses and netbots are evil. Result: Trusted Computing everywhere.
This is of course the extreme, very unlikely scenario. However, this is so serious that I think it is worth to watch out, even knowing that the odds are almost nil.