I’m pretty sure they said the same thing about shells when GUI came along.
> But iOS completely removes the incentive to learn and explore...
I guess I just have an entirely different perspective on this. If the PC was a bicycle for the mind, what we have now is a veritable rocket ship. Consider the devices, peripherals, platforms, APIs, connectivity, distribution, and tooling that is available today for anyone with any interest in creative artistic expression, be it coding, non-textual programming, or otherwise...
Anyone with a inventive flair is going to look at the mind-bogglingly advanced technology that a billion people are carrying around and just salivate at the opportunity that provides.
Modern devices and the modern Internet may placate the masses, but they are likewise catnip and catapult for anyone who wants to code the next great solution for Problem X.
But, I also fundamentally believe we shouldn't be restricting user freedoms to protect copyright.
$100 a year is completely and utterly cost-prohibitive for a lot of people, even within the context of someone who already owns an iPhone. A lot of children begin coding so they can create something for themselves, or change one thing in an application. With a 7-day limit, who would want to do that? While it's true that free accounts can technically experiment with coding, there's not much incentive when you can't really _use_ anything you've created.
I worry about a generation of children who is given iPads rather than computers. Sure, most of them would never have touched code anyway, and that's fine. But iOS completely removes the incentive to learn and explore—to actually hack and tweak and create the tools we use everyday, instead of blindly consuming them.