I am sympathetic to your complaint, but it's like saying we went from general-purpose computers to toasters you can't program.
iPads aren't computers in the sense you're talking about. They are appliances that run a limited set of software titles to do a limited set of things that the manufacturer allows.
It's frustrating because they could be really interesting general-purpose computers. But they aren't, and never have been.
> but it's like saying we went from general-purpose computers to toasters you can't program.
Give it a few more years, we're getting there.
> iPads aren't computers in the sense you're talking about.
Of course they are.
> They are appliances that run a limited set of software titles to do a limited set of things that the manufacturer allows.
No, that's just packaging and marketing.
> It's frustrating because they could be really interesting general-purpose computers.
For want of a single bit switch they are. And that's no accident.
> But they aren't, and never have been.
Of course they are. It was a conscious decision made by someone somewhere to not allow their use as general purpose computers, in other words something was added in order to take away the rights that you would come to expect.
This causes tons of these devices to end up in landfills at the end of their obsolete-by-design life-span and forces people into eco-systems they might not be using out of their free will if there was a choice to do so.
As I get older I feel I'm more and more in Stallmans' camp, I used to see him as on the money for the long term but that in our lifetimes it likely would not get that far. Now I'm starting to think that Stallman might have been an optimist after all.
There is an outside possibility that there will be a point in the future when suddenly old hardware that allowed you to run any program (just imagine!) will become very valuable.
Well, I think our difference is just semantic. You're right that it's just Apple's marketing decisions that make iPads "not general-purpose computers". But they still aren't, unless Apple reverses those decisions, which they won't.
Personally, I don't like this, either. I wish this wasn't the direction things are moving. But it is.
I'm not as pessimistic as you are about the future of computing, because I think there will always be a demand for general purpose computers — and therefore there will always be a bunch of companies selling them. So I doubt that we won't be able to get them, or that they will sell for crazy premiums — if they did, somebody would make them and sell them for less.
What I do think though is that the "general-purpose, arbitrarily capable" computer device segment is a small sliver of what it seemed like it was back in the old days when most computers were unrestricted.
I think 95% (or more) of the total "computing devices, including both general-purpose and locked-down appliances" market is happy with shitty locked-down devices, maybe even with ads and invidious tracking.
That's just the way it is. And it would be very hard to change that, because you'd have to change the people who are the market for these devices, and make them care that Apple doesn't allow software lets you see porn, or compile code, or learn about civilian casualties of US drone strikes, or any other thing that they don't want to let you do.
I don't see that happening.
So I think we are indeed headed for a world where the vast majority of computing devices are arbitrarily restricted, less-capable appliance-type devices like Apple's iPad.
That sucks for those of us who want unrestricted devices, because it means we become part of a niche market, one that isn't so interesting to the big multinational corporations like Apple with their huge budgets and economies of scale. So we can get an unrestricted, general purpose table computer, for example — but the hardware probably won't be as nice as an iPad, and the OS might have more rough edges.
It would be way better, for us, if computers really were inherently open by default, or if a most people cared about this stuff. But that's just my fantasy scenario (and apparently yours), not the world as it actually is.
Even if they do, as far as I know all the dev tools on windows are desktop software and don't have a tablet interface. That just flat out doesn't count. The problem with Windows Tablets is that they have always been intended as and marketed as 'consumption* devices' in tablet mode.
* That word always makes me think of 19th century paupers dying of pulmonary tuberculosis.
iPads aren't computers in the sense you're talking about. They are appliances that run a limited set of software titles to do a limited set of things that the manufacturer allows.
It's frustrating because they could be really interesting general-purpose computers. But they aren't, and never have been.