> If you want no more hackers in 20 years you should give your kids devices so locked down they can't do anything. Sure, but for the average person iPads are

> If you want no more hackers in 20 years you should give your kids devices so locked down they can't do anything. Sure, but for the average person iPads are devices that are so locked down that they can't really do anything. People herald the original iPhone as a revolution, but don't seem to realise what kind of revolution. Its main innovation appeared to be the touch-screen interface, but aside from the flexibility this gave for UI design, what this mainly meant was that all of its surface could be turned into a screen. The actual edge it had over the competition is that it was hyper-optimised as a consumption device, a pocket television so people can sell you more crap (oh sorry, "apps") any time of the day, any place in the world. The device itself is a perfect billboard. The iPhone and iPad are designed to appear as having impressive, magical, hard to grok technology under the hood that allows ease of use at the surface. Apple consciously seals the majority of people off from the actual power within, except through buying apps. By default, an iPhone either lets you consume, or create media for consumption yourself via photos and videos. Just think about how much less freedom you have to tinker with your phone on iOs compared to Android as an end-user (and let's not even talk about the demise of Nokia). You have to fully buy into the Apple ecosystem and become an app developer. Because my goodness we can't have people actually be empowered to fully use their computers, can we? Alan Kay has described modern computers and their interfaces as bikes encrusted in gold bling and jewels compared to the "bikes" of twenty, thirty years ago, but we're still stuck with the training wheels[0]. I say this definitely applies to iOs. And if we accept that iOs hardware is mainly designed to be used as a consumption device, that its success comes from being that portable TV (and don't misunderstand: I do have problems with that being the case), then the demands of the author of the article are perfectly sensible, especially if you keep discussions like [1][2] in mind. I doubt you would protest if instead of an iPad, the article described a portable TV with YouTube. EDIT: corrections [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lsy9Lotcdbg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lsy9Lotcdbg [1] https://medium.com/@jamesbridle/something-is-wrong-on-the-internet-c39c471271d2 https://medium.com/@jamesbridle/something-is-wrong-on-the-in... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16783748 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16783748