One car that made most of its motor "closed source" was the Audi A2. You could only check oil and add water for the windshield cleaning. It was a big fail. However, people later appreciated its design and its functionality so prices for 2nd hand cars are quite high. In addition, throughout the 80s cars in the western world were often repaired by their owners. That changed with the advent of electronic support for every function.

From my non-developer perspective, what apple made so attractive was the guidance they gave developers. The SDK seems to be pretty easy to set up and to use. And, the strict UI guidelines ease the stress to development of a unique GUI. Its just not needed.

While I think ubuntu and maemo offer similar simple solutions regarding the installation of programs, there is less control that you might end up not using certain programs because one needs sqlite2.1 the other sqlite3.

The ipad most probably will be a huge success. But, as many commentors on other sites have pointed out, the target audience won't be developers or experienced computer users, it will be people who associate work with computers and see the ipad as a non-work device.

icke

Disclaimer: this is quite off-topic but I felt the urge to comment...

I must correct you, being the proud owner of an A2 since the 2004. The engine isn't closed at all. In fact, it's quite easy to open its hood by turning two knobs. You also get a smaller frontal opening where you can quickly access oil and windshield water.

Say it's something like linux, you sudo open the hood and it's there

BTW my A2 has already run more than 3E5 kilometers and counting, and still burns 1 liter of diesel fuel for 20 to 24 kilometers, depending on driving conditions, This because it's all made in aluminium instead of steel so it's particularly light.

I've been told that they don't produce it any more because it was too expensive for the VW-Audi group in comparison to its cost

The author actually thinks no one in Nokia has a clue about this???

...

The author actually thinks that Nokia hasn't made a VIZIBLE move regarding your quoted statement(now talking about apps and services, although they-nokia have some very good devices, the thing that I hope it got into all our heads is that they couldn't make their devices as successful as they should have been-like the 3D hardware accelerated phones-allot of powerful apps could have been made...though it's a bit complicated to program for a symbian device). Perhaps they do know about this, I know that they're having their every move already planned for a lot of time, so perhaps they won't consider listening to their customer's feedback. ◄-►Have you guys ever thought that Nokia might want people/their customers to lose interest in their mobile devices(phones) and to start looking for their laptops?(some time ago Nokia mentioned that they would like to let go of their phones...)