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"Some bits aren't *for* beginners, microsoft."

It could be argued that Windows itself fits into this category. The beginners have iPads now; they can do everything they want to that thing and the chances of getting it good and screwed up are minimal. There's no need to know anything about computing to use one; the fact that the thing has a file system somewhere under all of that UI is completely hidden, so great is the level of abstraction. For people who really and truly only want to use (the web, Facebook, whatever) and not understand it or develop any actual skill or knowledge that would result in them NOT being a beginner anymore, a device dumbed down and locked down is probably the best choice for them.

I would not want to use such a thing. I would want to be able to change things and get at the nitty-gritty underneath. An iPad is like a car with the hood (bonnet?) welded shut... no thanks. The ability to mess things up is power... you can't have power and "for beginners" at the same time. The people who never needed a full PC in the first place (but had to have one back when that was the only way to use the internet) have moved on to mobile devices; those of us left in the "real computer" space are not here because of ease-of-use.

I am sure there are exceptions; there are always a few. Still, I think that those of us who remain in PC circles (not just professional IT people that are in unusually high concentration here on this site for obvious reasons) are not simply a randomly-sampled subset of the PC usership that existed in the pre-smartphone days.