Here's a little list, not from a web developer's perspective, but from the perspective of someone who <i>really</i> wanted to write apps for the iPhone OS but is turned-off by the AppStore. Did I say turned-off? I meant outraged. Offended. Disgusted.<p>1. Neither the iPhone nor the iPad are going to replace full-blown computers. They're neither powerful enough nor comfortable enough for serious work. Of course, the situation could change dramatically a few years from now, but I'm sure we'll figure something out when the time comes. For now, get a Mac and have a blast hacking it :)<p>2. If you think Apple's touch devices have taken the world by storm and everything else pales in comparison, I humbly suggest you come to New Delhi and count the number of iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad owners. Most of the world just can't afford to spend cash on shiny entertainment devices. People are still going to buy and use computers. You can still write apps for Mac OS X/Linux/Windows. The world has not yet ended.<p>3. Most of the apps you find on the AppStore could conceivably be written as webapps. Why bother with ObjC and Cocoa when you can just use JavaScript+HTML5? A large percentage of apps just pull data from a server and display it in pretty boxes. On the other hand, if you're writing a game, you're already a "special case" and have to play by Apple's rules -- which are not different from what Microsoft/Nintendo/Sony impose on their developers. So, for most of your programming needs, JavaScript+HTML5 should be enough.<p>4. Have we forgotten that these days, Apple are an entertainment and content distribution company who just <i>happen</i> to make computers? Apple are not marketing the iPad as a general-purpose computer; they want to sell it as an entertainment device. Since it's a niche device, in the grand scheme of things, the closed nature of the iPhone OS doesn't really matter.<p>This list doesn't do much to allay the major concerns of the tech community: the iPad <i>is</i>, in fact,  a full-blown computer that is hopelessly locked-in by Apple and their delusional policies, that it could be much more than just an entertainment device, that we have something radically different from the traditional model of computing but cannot exploit the thousands of possibilities this gives us. This list is just an indication that we mustn't lose hope yet. Let the guys in Cupertino figure out when - if ever - they want to loosen their grip on the iPhone OS ecosystem. In the meantime, we'll just write web apps :)<p>EDIT: In a previous comment, I mentioned I don't want to write JavaScript. It's true. But I can put up with JS if it means I don't have to sell out to Apple.