Here's a list of keywords. Just feed them to a generic Markov random sentence generator and you'll get your response: Gatekeeper, walled-garden App Store, iOSification, hardware obsolescence in 4-5 years, closed-source, GPL, soldered RAM and SSD and battery, overpriced, eye-candy, skeuomorphism, big brother, reality-distortion-field.
I don't want to be a jerk or offend "alberich", but I strongly disagree with him.
I just couldn't install any other usable operating system on the hardware other then Apple's OS. The specifications were closed, you couldn't get much anything useful installed on it because it depended on proprietary software that, of course, only worked on OS X.
edit: besides, things don't look much better nowdays, eh?
> you couldn't get much anything useful installed on it
I have node, redis, mysql, couchdb, mongodb, autoconf/automake/cmake, ffmpeg, erlang, git, hg, gnuplot, groovy, memchaced, lua, lynx, lib* (a million of them), nmap, rabbitmq, phantomjs, postgresql, siege, httpd, squid, spidermonkey, coffee-script, mit-scheme,pcre, lkgconfig, mosh, HTTPie, python, ruby, cairo, pango, x11 installed on my OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion (among other tools that I've forgot or don't use regularly). And I'm not even a "pro" user - just a regular developer.
But your requirements clearly differs from mine. Because you don't find them "useful". It's okay, not all of us use the same tools. But I'm sure the majority of developers use the aforementioned tools, and care less about kernel programming or other things that can't be done on a MacBook as efficiently as on ThinkPads (although Torvalds uses an Air).
Why on Earth did you buy it if that isn't what you wanted?
It's like buying a hardcover book and complaining that you couldn't get it to be any other book. They're not selling iOS devices as hobbyist machines for tinkerers. You buy an iPhone to be an iPhone, an iPad to be an iPad. That's not a bad thing, it's an attribute of the product you bought as much as its price and processor.
"besides, things don't look much better nowdays, eh?"
Sure they do. I can run both Linux and Windows without virtualization, and Apple even supports the latter officially through the Boot Camp-application.
I can't reply to Zirro's and pooriaazimi's posts, so I'll answear here.
Zirro: that is good to know. I wish it was the same with the IPad. Owning your hardware, in the sense that you can install alternative stuff on it, is very important for me.
pooriaazimi: the point was about the power to install anything, including a different OS. If it is like Zirro said, it is sure a big improvement on the desktop/laptop category. Sadly the IPad doesn't offer you the freedom for using anything that is not from Apple. I don't care much about it, because the IPad isn't mine anyways. I just wouldn't buy it if I had to choose (Android's devices look much more open).
ps. I'm sorry if I offended some people, it was not my intention. cheers :)
I would be curious for some example of non-proprietary software you could install on Linux that would not work in one of the many options available to OS X users: homebrew/macports/fink, dual-boot (or replace the OS), virtualization, or just build from source.
