I think it's perfectly clear why they're doing this:  because they think it provides a better consumer experience.  That, in turn, is what translates into more money and more sales.  (I believe they said on their conference call earlier this week that don't make much off their cut of app sales).<p>The iPhone and iPad are not computers:  they're extensible consumer electronics devices.  The iPhone sells so well precisely because it just works, and it's <i>really</i> hard to screw it up relative to a computer.  How is creating a consumer electronics device evil?  Because people want it to be a computer?  Because it'll somehow erode the market for full-fledged computers?  Because they're attracting developers to their closed system?  How is this any more evil than Nintendo or Sony or Microsoft making their game consoles relatively closed systems?<p>We should all keep in mind that computers as such are a usability and maintenance disaster for 95% of the population who has no idea how to deal with viruses, install or remove software, resolve crashes or incompatibilities, or even navigate a file system so they don't lose their documents.<p>Maybe I'm too cynical about computers and give Apple too much of the benefit of the doubt, but their devices are good precisely because they exert so much end-to-end control, and computers are broken for so many people precisely because they're so open.