1) Create a new user on your macbook.
2) Enable Parental Controls.
3) Allow Safari, iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie.
4) ...
5) Profit!
Would you buy a laptop locked down like the iPad?
11–20 of 28 posts
Re: Would you buy a laptop locked down like the iPad?
#12The question is not "would you buy" but "would people buy" and the answer to that is undeniably YES. You can argue this is not a good thing, as Cory Doctorow has at least tried to, but the argument comes across as tired and pointless. It's the ramblings of an "old man" (measured in internet years of course) who, had he been born a hundred years ago, would probably have been railing against car companies for removing…
I'd like to think that the future will not always be Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.
Of course not, but the future will continue to be visited primarily using a web browser.
Re: Would you buy a laptop locked down like the iPad?
#13Yes—because obviously it would have an IDE and Compiler-suite app ! Otherwise, how would you develop on it? ;) (And then all the free, unlicensed apps anyone likes could just be released as source, and compiled+run locally in test mode.)
Typed in out of a cheap newsprint magazine, even!
Apple wants to kill the "power user" dead. Every one uses the system on the same clear, easily understood terms. A fraction of those users will be developers, but even they will use the device itself as users in the same way as everyone else, not as wizards. Some people see this as Harrison Bergeron, but I sure don't — the people they're 'handicapping' didn't know anything in the first place, they were pretenders.
Re: Would you buy a laptop locked down like the iPad?
#14Maybe, depends on the details. I wouldn't be ideologically opposed to it. I just don't want to spend much time dealing with the nuts & bolts anymore. In my case I work with technology 8-10 hours per day for my job. The last thing I want to do is come home and micro-manage my own stuff. With most of these closed platforms what we really are talking about is a managed platform where a company takes responsibility for the end user experience. This is about the same as a company hiring an IT department to lock down their office desktops to improve security and increase workers productivity by creating a trouble free, consistent, environment for them to work in. There's nothing wrong with that. In the end, as the consumer, I get to make the choice what type of product I want. I think it's kind of a downer that someone would oppose my ability to make the choice to buy one of these managed platforms because they don't like them. I certainly wouldn't want to stop people from being able to dig into the nuts & bolts if that's what they want. If we can have some hybrid of both I'm all for it but it seems very difficult to strike a good balance.
Re: Would you buy a laptop locked down like the iPad?
#15no.
Same for a cell phone. No.
Same for a car. No.
Same for every crap. No.
I would open an exception if there was some free service. I am considering the kindle because of the free wikipedia all the time.
Re: Would you buy a laptop locked down like the iPad?
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd like to think that the future will not always be Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.
Of course not, but the future will continue to be visited primarily using a web browser.
God I hope not. I hope some day I wont have to use HTML, CSS, Javascript, and a serverside language just to write an app.
I'd like to just use one language and hit all platforms.
Re: Would you buy a laptop locked down like the iPad?
#17I descend from hundreds of generations of intelligent beings who conquered the world using tools they could understand and improve. I refuse to have some vendor demote me to a lesser species, no matter how shiny the beads are.
Re: Would you buy a laptop locked down like the iPad?
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course not, but the future will continue to be visited primarily using a web browser.
God I hope not. I hope some day I wont have to use HTML, CSS, Javascript, and a serverside language just to write an app. I'd like to just use one language and hit all platforms.
You don't necessarily have to touch the markup directly, your app can essentially be pure JS (or compiled to pure JS) that paints it all into the DOM dynamically (see http://cappuccino.org/)
You don't need a server-side language if the app doesn't really need to communicate with your server. You can do everything client-side with LocalStorage (SQLite) and cached assets. If the page has the right metadata on it, "Add to Home Screen" saves the whole app locally.
And there's no reason why the server, if it needs to exist, shouldn't be executing the same language (see http://nodejs.org/)
The modern web is the platform. There are nice local platforms, but your "write once run anywhere" 'native' app isn't going to fit in on any platform that actually gets used.
Re: Would you buy a laptop locked down like the iPad?
#19Say this with me: iPad is not a laptop. Once people understand that it is a consumer device, an appliance like an iPod or a DVD player, that just happens to do a lot of extra stuff, we can start talking about what it can do and how people will use it.
I disagree. I see no reason other than Apple's choice that the iPad shouldn't be on the same level as a laptop or desktop.
Re: Would you buy a laptop locked down like the iPad?
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course not, but the future will continue to be visited primarily using a web browser.
God I hope not. I hope some day I wont have to use HTML, CSS, Javascript, and a serverside language just to write an app. I'd like to just use one language and hit all platforms.
If you use Cappuccino, you're down to, at most, two languages: Objective-J and your server-side language. Considering that Objective-J is essentially a superset of Javascript, if you're okay with Javascript as your server-side language(or if there's some Objective-J-based server-side framework I'm not aware of), you can create web applications using just one(or, if you don't count Objective-J and JS as just one language, 1.5, at most) language this very moment.