As for the geeks, things haven't changed either. We find ways to open up the devices and get the freedoms we want.
Basically, the flip side of the increased consumption is that it's a lot easier to get your work out to other people, which means people who previously couldn't or wouldn't are now becoming producers. For example, a lot more people are publishing books for e-readers because those platforms make it so easy — with Amazon, it's pretty much as simple as logging into your Amazon account and uploading a text file. Web series (e.g. "The Guild") are a viable medium because so many people have these easy-consumption devices.
Yes and no. They didn't create software, but they created content. Just look at Facebook & other social network sites. It's full of user generated content. Likewise people generated content to print out with word processors, and they generated content as emails to send to people. They also generated photographic content. However pretty much all of this is now done in web browsers, so in a way, you can generate all this content with iPad/Kindle.