Mark Pilgrim elucidates what is so upsetting about the Apple iPad to people like us who grew up tinkering on their computers, in Tinkerer’s Sunset. Our children are going to grow up in pristine computing jails that both legally and technically thwart attempts at tinkering.
I’m hardly an expert when it comes to computer tinkering. But I am a long-time novice, and one thing that has always kept me away from Apple in general (outside of my beloved iPod) is how unfriendly they are to tinkering.
PC’s, because they’re essentially “open source” in their manufacture (any company can make an PC), have always been friendlier to tinkering.