i don't really get this. we're not only in an age of consumer-orientated devices, which is great, but also in an age of such wealth and technological progress,

i don't really get this. we're not only in an age of consumer-orientated devices, which is great, but also in an age of such wealth and technological progress, that we have specialized machines serving different, specialized purposes. in which way could the ipad be a tinkerer device more than it is now? well, it could have an accessible *nix core with the ability run a package manager like apt and in general the ability to modify the core experience of the device. although it'd be great to have that, there wouldn't be that much use to it. everything in and on this device is highly optimized for the one experience every buyer comes to appreciate. any core modifications would probably deteriorate this experience rather than improve on it. but whatever i'm saying here doesn't actually matter, since every enthusiast has been able to do exactly that, get root access to any iOS device, since the first iphone. of course, in order to properly modify the devices behaviour, a lot of back-engineering is needed. but hey, that's what tinkering is all about, isn't it? i'm digressing... my actual point here is: specialized devices for specialized purposes. a fully capable linux machine with the most open os available today and the benefit of a prospering eco-system costs you a mere 35 bucks or even less. this is any tinkerer's dream and it's real and accessable to anyone. what again are we whining about here? the ipad/iphone are produced within a highly competitive market. that they're locked up is, objectively, a matter of protection of investments. also, because they can. to sum it up, the ipad isn't a tinkerer device because 1) it doesn't even have a keyboard. how would you tinker with it? 2) actually you can root the device and modify the underlying core processes 3) going beyond this would need official documentation by apple of it's secret apis etc., which isn't economically feasable in this highly competitive market. i mean samsung copies whatever the fuck is coming out of cupertino, atm at least. 4) it doesn't need to be more than a consumption device, because for the tinkerers there exists the most vivid environment imaginable: cheap hardware, a free, open, up-to-date os and a brimming eco-system of developers and software.