WITHOUT being a computer geek?

"Apple produces computers that people can use without being a computer geek."

Bollocks to that. Apple produce devices which can be used if all you want is what their designers also want.

Give my mother-in-law an easy-to-use iPhone? Not without ALSO giving her a COMPUTER. Play FLAC, 'cause that's what I rip my CDs to for high-quality sound? Oh, heck; it's a damn minefield to get them playing on the iPad.

Have you TRIED installing free apps on your i-Box? I did - it took more geek knowledge that it does to configure Apache ... but, oddly enough, once learned both are easy enough.

My desktop computers have been running Linux since 1993. My window manager is ctwm, and it is much hated by everyone I know. But: there is nothing quite like my setup for the things I WANT TO DO!

IF Apple's devices do what you want, fine. Great. Most bodacious. If, for ANY reason at all, you want to do something OTHER than what they've designed into them - no matter if you are a geek or not (ref. m-i-law above) - it ain't very user friendly any more.

And herein lay the problem: Steve Jobs was an excellent marketeer. He did his job with great competence. He also managed to sell so many people on walled-in devices that it may just have impact OUTSIDE of the people who actually find them useful.

As long as your definition of "user" is the same as Apple's, everything is rosy red. Please try to accept that not everyone agree with that philosophy.

"Open source, while having a sort of 'nerd hip cool' to it, just isn't that useful to the vast majority of people."

Heh. Right. The vast majority of people using the 'net might be inclined to disagree with you.