Re: I can see them being a good buy for the utterly-IT-incompetents.
Dear Shagbag
I really don't agree.
I don't wan't to start a slanging match but your statement to me makes it sound like you think that anyone who ever used a dumb terminal is an IT incompetent?
Whereas I think that pretty much all the IT that currently exists including the Internet was developed by people using dumb terminals (VT100 and the like) accessing remote server systems.
Then came terminal emulators running on PCs and workstations, and gradually we have moved into the fully client-server type model which was envisaged in the 1980s and 90s. Again all current and probably future IT will be developed using this model.
The advent of Chromebooks to me just marks the democratising of that client-server model. I don't need to spend thousands on a X-windows based Sun workstation.
Instead for less that £200 I can buy a lightweight portable and almost disposable device that gives me access to almost infinite computing power (CPU cycles, memory, disk storage etc).
And as with a dumb terminal rather than having to spend my time managing my client device (installing MS-Windows upgrades and the like) I can use my Chromebook to do whatever I want to do on the cloud - including writing programmes if I so wish.
I get your joke about Apple users being utterly IT incompetent.
But again I don't agree with your suggestion. I think eventually really IT competent people get past the platform-religion argument and realise that IT regardless if Windows/Mac/Unix, or Google/Apple/Microsoft, is a powerful to tool to do interesting, fun and useful things for other people.
Best