Whenever Apple comes out with a product that becomes a commercial success, commentary breaks down into two main groups:

1. Apple products are crap - the reason they are a success is that there is a rabid fanboy base that eagerly sucks up Apple's substandard stuff.

2. Apple products are revolutionary - the reason they are a success is that Apple has managed to combine usability and features in exactly the right mix to create a product everyone wants.

At this point in the history of technology, it doesn't much matter which viewpoint is correct - Apple's products get enormous play in the market - whether that is the result of fanboy pressure or because the stuff is insanely great. The result is that they sell millions of whatever they release. And because of that, they are in the drivers seat when it comes to defining the shape of things to come, whether it's what an MP3 player should look like and how it should operate, what a real smartphone should look like and how it should operate, or what a real tablet should look like and how it should operate.

Until Apple stumbles and falls on their face with a bad product (the external antenna goof probably won't make that happen), or some other manufacturer manages to create a revolutionary product that catches the public eye, or create a fanbase to rival Apple's, they will continue to define the future of portable consumer computing.

I agree that there were tablets way before Apple's iPad. My point was that I was tired of hearing yet another vaporware announcement of an upcoming tablet that doesn't yet exist. I define "exist" as available for purchase. Seems to me that once Apple managed to create a tablet that was commercially successful, that a bunch of wannabe tablet competitors are coming out of the woodwork with advance announcements that really amount to trial balloons. In my opinion it isn't really news - i.e. deserving of posting on Slashdot - until its reality, not illusion.

The Dell will suddenly die for no reason. That will teach 'em.

This certainly isn't news. Apple comes out with a popular device, so everyone else thinks they have to come out with one, too. Everybody makes future vaporware announcements to see what the reaction might be, but until they are actually on the market and you can buy one, they are just PR fluff.

Forthcoming....in develpment...soon to be released...in beta testing...

Why do we even pay attention to any of this crap? I can make up specs that stack up well against the iPad, but unless the hardware and OS and apps are actually available for purchase from a variety of retailers *right now*, it's all just vaporware and a monumental waste of time.

Time will tell, but I still see the overall trend as less freedom for the user. Back in the wild, woolly S-100 days, there were actually a ton of guys making systems and boards and a number of different OS's for a variety of processors (8080, Z-80, 6800, etc). Then came the PC, which reduced my choice to a single processor vendor but still allowed me to add boards. Today's laptops are typically configured at the factory when ordered, with users adding little to the internals afterwards, and now comes the smart phones and tablets which are locked down, with the exception of a blessed set of apps you can load (or non-blessed but remotely removable for you droid types).

Somewhere I think I've seen studies on new industries where - at the start - you have a bunch of eager beaver startups and lots of new innovation. Venture cap flows like water and there's fun, pioneering jobs for all. Later, a few successful ones emerge and a period of market consolidation occurs where the small guys get eaten. Finally, you end up with a mature industry with a set of known players, into which it is very hard for new guys to break in (think Tesla Motors here against GM, Ford, Toyota, etc).

Of course my original post was meant to be purely philosophical - I believe I am seeing a trend towards highly managed closed computing devices. May not happen, but I certainly see it as a possible scenario for a mature personal computing industry, rather than a continued focus on self-managed and self-configurable devices. I just don't see the bulk of users out there caring about App Store freedoms like we do in here. Sort of like the difference between your average car buyer and the weekend hotrodder that has his engine bored out and a high-end tranny put in. Room for both of course.

They are using white-out to cover up the bad words on screen.

You've got to hide it from the kids, koo-koo-a-choo!

Point taken. On the other hand, if they were to delete ALL the applications, the device would be conceptually error free :-) A total brick, of course, but one that looks real pretty.

Speaking of bricks (and not meaning to be ageist here), do you recall the name of the hard disk drive manufacturer who- back in the early 80's could not meet a large OEM order so one of the boxes they shipped consisted of bricks.

Then there was the vendor bidding on a government modem contract who showed off his device which had lots of blinkenlights on the front and worked fine, but when the observers looked at the back of the device they discovered that the vendor simply took a competitors modem and built a new box around it.

Way off topic, sorry.

My original post was, of course, meant to be a general observation on how applications are restricted on the current crop of devices and what I believe we can look forward to in the future. I could care less how either Google or Apple instigated, authorized, entrapped, enforced, or implemented whatever policies they have in place. My point was that both Apple-originated and Google-originated devices have restrictions on what is allowed to run.

So why don't we just stop this conversation here, since we are obviously talking on different topics.

DId you read the article? Google yanked the apps after they had been installed. Apple restricts things on the front end, Google on the back end.

Obviously they can disapprove an application after it has been installed. Same result, whether you prevent it's installation or yank it later.

I gotta admit, I am laughing my ass off. After a year of listening to Slashdotters slam Apple for it's overly restrictive App store policies (Waaaa - I can't run any piece of crap app I want - waaaaa), it is like a breath of fresh air to see a *real* big brother operation in action. Google can remotely yank apps directly off that "completely open" phone? Priceless.

The days of user-managed consumer computing devices is just about over. The future is stringently managed devices and no unapproved applications. Why? The device manufacturers must ensure a seamless user experience - any hiccup in either hardware or application just helps sink a product in this highly competitive space. And OS manufacturers (not to mention the users) are fed up with security breaches and malware - better just to lock it all down, and eliminate the complaints and problems. The vast majority of users have no desire whatsoever to manage anything on their computers - they just want to buy and play the games or run apps that never crash. Keeping up with the latest viruses is something only totally uncool people do anymore.

The cowboy days are over, folks. The wild, wild west is becoming settled.

Not sure about the "dumbed down" comment. The magazine is designed primarily for the embedded systems hobbyist market, using stuff like PIC and other microcontrollers. Lots of stuff on Basic Stamps, Parallax boards and sensors, and Arduino, etc. Advertisers are mostly dev board makers, short-run PC board service houses, and surplus barns. I've found the articles useful enough to keep my subscription current for over 10 years. Lots of robotics and balloon-sat goodies.