Eve­r­y­thing I wi­ll say he­re was pro­ba­bly be­tter said by Ma­rk Pil­grim <h­ttp://­di­vein­to­ma­rk.or­g/ar­chi­ve­s/2010/01/29/­ti­nke­rer­s-­sun­se­t> but what the he­ck, le­t's gi­ve it a sho­t.

He­re's wha­t's wrong wi­th the iPa­d: it su­cks for me.

Be­fo­re an­yo­ne sa­ys "do­n't buy it then!" I'­ll say it firs­t: I do­n't in­tend to buy one.

I thi­nk the­re is a pla­ce for iPa­ds and it would go agains most of my be­lie­fs to say it should­n't exis­t, but I al­so ex­pect it to make our world poore­r, if it's po­pu­lar enou­gh.

Yes it's hos­ti­le to ti­nke­rin­g. Ye­s, to read about tha­t, see Ma­rk Pil­gri­m's arti­cle, he's a mu­ch be­tter wri­ter than I.

I on­ce pos­ted the READ­ME fi­le for a pie­ce of so­ftwa­re ca­lled Atlas­t. It said things like "make eve­r­y­thing pro­gra­m­ma­ble" and "[It is] far be­tter to in­vest the effort up front to crea­te a pro­duct fle­xi­ble enou­gh to be adap­ted at wi­ll, by its user­s, to their im­me­dia­te nee­d­s."

The iPad and most other Apple pro­duc­ts are the an­ti­the­sis of tha­t. They are pro­duc­ts meant to be exac­tly as they are, and tha­t's all they are goint to be. If you want to chan­ge the way it ac­ts, you need to pay and be sub­ject of Apple's whi­m, or "break in­to" your own de­vi­ce.

That hur­ts me. I see peo­ple gi­ve up even the po­s­si­bi­li­ty of chan­ging what a (le­t's say it) pre­tty, use­fu­l, po­wer­ful de­vi­ce is ca­pa­ble of, just be­cau­se they do­n't what that free­do­m. I can un­ders­tand that fro­m, sa­y, a us­ed car sa­les­man, or whate­ve­r, so­meo­ne wi­thout any in­cli­na­tion for that cra­ft.

But I see freaking pro­gra­m­mers bu­ying apple ki­t. And I see them ha­ppy wi­th their iPho­nes and iPo­ds and (soon, su­re­l­y) iPa­d­s, bu­ying apps from the on­ly sour­ce ena­bled to se­ll the­m, bu­ying the apps that are allo­wed by a sin­gle par­ty, that de­ci­des, he­y, this app? you wo­n't need it!

I see them and I say to mysel­f, du­de, that thing you hold in your hand is mo­re po­wer­ful than an­y­thing we had 10 years ago, the­re must be so­me­thing cool you could do wi­th it that noone el­se is doin­g.

Wha­t's the vi­sion a pro­gra­m­mer has of his fu­tu­re if he en­dor­ses Apple's clo­sed ki­t? A fu­tu­re whe­re he can pro­gram so­me­thing on­ly if Apple appro­ve­s? A fu­tu­re whe­re a "rea­l" com­pu­ter is a SDK for the things "real peo­ple" use in their eve­r­y­day li­fe­s?

What is wrong wi­th you? What ha­ppe­ned to you? Are you now the kind of guy tha­t's just ha­ppy wi­th what he's gi­ven? Are you now a freaking uti­li­ta­rian? Are you old no­w?

Ha­ve you no­ti­ced the trend in Apple's new pro­duc­ts is to­war­ds le­ss con­trol by the use­r? First it was just handhel­d­s, now the­re's a ta­ble­t. What was the last new in­te­res­ting Apple pro­duct that was­n't lo­cked up?

He­re they had a de­vi­ce whi­ch could ha­ve OSX or Ipho­ne OS, and they went wi­th Ipho­ne OS. The­re is a rea­son for tha­t: it makes them mo­re mo­ne­y.

For OS­X, they make mo­ney of the har­dwa­re, the OS upgra­des, and so­me app­s. On the iPa­d, they make mo­ney eve­ry ti­me you buy any app, eve­ry ti­me you buy a book to read in it, eve­ry ti­me you use 3G wi­th the pre­paid plan, and I am su­re they are going to find other wa­ys too.

And wha­t's the key to making mo­ney that wa­y? Con­tro­l. If they had no ex­clu­si­ve con­trol of the App sto­re, they lo­se a sour­ce of re­ve­nue. If they allo­wed for ea­sy de­ve­lo­p­ment of ho­bby app­s, they would lo­se re­ve­nue. If they could let you re­pla­ce the freaking ba­tte­r­y, they would lo­se re­ve­nue.

And if the­re's one thing com­pa­nies ha­te is lo­sing re­ve­nue. Apple saw two pa­ths ahea­d, one lea­ding to hu­ge mo­ne­y, the other to just big mo­ne­y. They ha­ve taken the hu­ge mo­ney pa­th, and it's wo­rking for the­m. They are not going ba­ck.

If eve­r­yo­ne goes along for the ri­de, it wi­ll be a sad thin­g.