“There’s Always Ubuntu”

Love them or hate them, this is something that Apple—more than any other company—fundamentally gets. They want a computing experience more like the appliance experience. If this vision “wins” that doesn’t mean there’s no place for geeks; there’s still a need for programmers and web developers and sysadmins and UI designers. But the computers that most of the public increasingly interfaces with will be computers that are not designed to be directly programmable.

And I’m pretty sure this vision will win. For the vast majority of users the model of the app console—think game console, but not just for games—is simply better. The iPad is an app console, and the Macs of next year will be, too. And the PCs of the year after that.

And just like with game consoles, geeks will always be able to tinker.