[stripes1776]

Would you buy a PC where you were not allowed to set the administrator password, were not allowed to install the OS of your choosing, and where the manufacturer had complete control over what content you could transfer in and out of the device?

But that's the whole point. An iPad is not a PC. An iPad is a highly portable consumer electronics device with minimal system administration required. It just works out of the box.

[Notary Sojac]

The ipad is, at long last, the device for that apocryphal Grandma who just wants to send pictures of the grandkids and chat with her friends via e-mail.

Locked down tight, almost nothing to learn, no way to screw it up or wind up pwned by malware.

The real question is, why are so many creative, roll-your-own geeks also possessed by this gadget?