The iPad Mystery
I wish I could buy tablets and computers the same way I buy synthesisers and mixers: knowing full well that they&#x27;ll be just as useful in 20 years, as they are the day I bought them.<p>I look around me in the room I&#x27;m in currently and I see a massive collection of much-loved, very respected, well-used hardware: synthesisers.  But I&#x27;m typing this message on a machine (MacBook) that is inevitably going to end up being replaced by something else, just because after a few years its not going to be as much use as it once could have been.  This has happened already - with many a MacBook&#x2F;tiBook, my iPad1&#x2F;iPad2 collection, and so on.<p>But yet, the musical instruments still remain, even 30 years after their release, and even long after official support has ended.  I chalk this up to completeness: musical instrument manufacturers know that a musical instrument that needs repair&#x2F;maintenance&#x2F;upgrades on a regular basis, isn&#x27;t a musical instrument.  (Its more of a toy.)<p>I wonder what could happen that would bridge this gap between these two worlds - on the one hand, effectively &#x27;finished&#x27; products that are always very reliable and still work the way they were intended, decades on - versus on the other hand, &#x27;unstable&#x27; products that will, basically, still work on a fundamental level 10 years from now, as long as I&#x27;m willing to do the work myself to keep them running.<p>I wish the computer manufacturers treated their products more like refined, finished, musical instruments than half-finished&#x2F;never-finished sort-of tools whose functionality is never, really, set in stone for the ages.