Ever notice people don't build their own cars anymore? They used to even up through the 60's. I mean ordering a kit or otherwise purchasing all the components and building the car. Nowadays it's very rare that people do that.
I'm old enough to remember when people literally built their own computers, soldering iron in hand. People haven't done that since the early 80's.
Steve Jobs' vision of the Mac, released in 1984, was for it to be a computing appliance - "the computer for the rest of us." The technology of the day prevented that. Though they pushed that as hard as they could.
Today's iPad? It's the fulfillment of Steve Jobs' original vision of the Mac: a computing appliance. It took 40 years, but we're here.
If you don't want a computing appliance then don't buy an iPad. I'd go further and argue don't buy any tablet device. Those that don't want computing appliances don't have to buy them. It's not like laptops, or even desktops, are going anywhere anytime soon.
> If you don't want a computing appliance then don't buy an iPad.
If you do want a computing appliance, then there's nothing wrong with having a machine that could be reprogrammed that you simply choose not to reprogram. Please stop advocating for a worse world for the rest of us when it doesn't benefit you in the slightest to have a machine that you don't control.
Stop being so damned melodramatic. I'm not advocating for a "worse world for the rest of us." There are a plethora of choices for machines that aren't appliances. In fact, the overwhelming majority of machines are programmable. Apple thinks the market wants a computing appliance. The market will decide. Meanwhile, you have lots of other choices.
