The iPad

I've deliberately avoided getting into the media frenzy about Apple's latest creation, the over-sized iPod Touch called the iPad.  But John, as usual, gets it spot on:

"If the iPad takes off as the iPhone did, then it will have as disruptive an impact on the computing and media industries as the Apple phone has already had on mobile telephony.
And if that happens then we will all have to take a long, hard look at the company that has made it possible.
For the implication of an iPad-crazed world – with its millions of delighted, infatuated users – is that a single US company renowned for control-freakery will have become the gatekeeper to the online world. The iPad – like the iPhone – is a closed, tightly controlled device: nothing gets on to it that has not been expressly approved by Apple. We will have arrived at an Orwellian end by Huxleian means. And be foolish enough to think that we've attained nirvana."

Brewster Kahle also points out some of his concerns about a future of Apple control in this morning's Guardian.