Will simplified operating systems kill future innovation?

We've seen this style of complaint many times since the announcement of the iPad. I think it's mostly an overreaction. My two points:

1. Hackers hack. People who have the hacker mentality figure out a way to be a hacker. Many people from my generation grew up using machines that were exclusively Windows. (Yes, I know many people did not, but many did.) DOS was hidden, and it came with no compilers. People still hacked. Yes, even that was more "open" than an iPad. But the notion people keep bringing up is that without the knowledge that hacking a system is possible, no one will do it. I don't think this is true.

2. The abstraction level that the majority of the next generation of hackers operate at may be higher than the last generation. This is almost a self-evident statement, but I haven't seen it mentioned much. The next generation of hackers may not even need compilers. Perhaps they will take advantage of the fact that all devices these days have a browser with a JavaScript runtime.

A part of me cries out, "But they'll completely take the operating system and hardware for granted! They'll never have to think about the machine itself!" And then I remind myself that this is progress. There are plenty of things that hackers before me spent all of their time on that I rarely think about.

Simpler phones have resulted in previously incomprehensible quantities of innovation. Remember phones 5 years ago? You had to know about IMEI numbers to get your internet working. What kind of innovation did that spawn in its users? None. Simpler phones have shown people that some tasks can be programmed pretty easily. They've shown people tech can be fun.

No, I think simpler operating systems will dramatically increase the productivity of the people using it day-to-day (think of all the millions or billions of man hours wasted fixing Windows rather than innovating Windows) and leave much more time open for people to just sit and think about how things could be better.

I don't think "simplified" is the right word. Simplicity can foster innovation, by leaving more space to fill. The word is "restricted".

Yes a 10000 times. This is going to be a fun 2 years, btw.