Alex Payne, developer for Twitter, sees the release of the iPad as, potentially, the “Tinkerer’s Sunset.” I am keeping my fingers crossed for the perseverance of “openness”.
The thing that bothers me most about the iPad is this: if I had an iPad rather than a real computer as a kid, I’d never be a programmer today. I’d never have had the ability to run whatever stupid, potentially harmful, hugely educational programs I could download or write. I wouldn’t have been able to fire up ResEdit and edit out the Mac startup sound so I could tinker on the computer at all hours without waking my parents.
