I get the ideological issues with the iOS software "walled garden", but the shitshow that is the only alternative (Android) leaves me wanting. It's malware and

I get the ideological issues with the iOS software "walled garden", but the shitshow that is the only alternative (Android) leaves me wanting. It's malware and advertising infested and Android tablets are a joke and rarely supported for more than 2 years. He complained about third party apps and then goes into a couple of nostalgia trips over the comic book store (I miss it and the music store, too) and taking apart much simpler electronics as a kid. Like, get your kid a regular PC case, then? What's there to even hack? The iPad, and almost every cell phone as well, is essentially a giant system on a chip with a screen and a battery. There's not much to hack. Also, most people keep thier iPads for more than two years unless it actually hard-fails. My last one was 5 years before I finally got a new one (though I also had the misfortune of buying the first one and the first retina one, which didn't hold up to the march of new models very well). I don't need a hackable portable computer. I have a full time job and a toddler. I want to turn it on at the end of the day and look at stupid cat videos. Doctorow reminds me of the people that refused to get cell phones and then complained that their friends stopped contacting them. Also, what the hell is a "CD-ROM programmer"? Does he just mean software that was distributed on CD-ROM? Also, if he theoretically had "a lot" of AOL shares he'd have been "bailed out" by the merger with Time Warner and would have had "a lot" of shares in the successor companies (he wouldn't be laughing, but he'd have something), but the fact that he's still using AOL as a slur is showing just how much he hasn't moved on with the times, even in 2010. The only real criticism I have of the ipad is its annoyingly bad background support. I still IRC and the clients disconnect very quickly if I switch apps. This makes SSH annoying as well.