General population does not have this problem. They do not care about feature lists, MHzs of CPU, they do not count watts and do not carry replaceable batteries. They do not give a damn how open or how closed the ecosystem is.
Either device works for them or it does not.
I guess very few geeks get that, and Jeff is sure not one of them.
And it would be a mistake to think that Apple is going to release something along the lines of the slate MS presented at CES. The rumor goes, that Jobs has asked, what good the the new tablet device could do besides browsing internet in the restroom. I guess they are not going to release one if it does not have an answer to this question.
The general population cares about being able to do what they want to do on their machines. If there's software people really want they they aren't "allowed" to run on their machine by the gatekeepers, they will, as they have countless times in the past, vote with their wallets.
Users don't care about whether the platform is open directly. But they do benefit from the openness.
An example that has been beaten to death; Google Voice. On my open phone, I dial with the normal dialer and my call is connected via Google Voice. On the iPhone, that is not possible. You have to go to a web page, dial a number, and wait for Google to call you. Not a good "user experience".
