I imagine that if Apple is seriously planning a future where the iPad is the only computer that 'normal' people need then the iTunes requirement will disappear soon. I imagine that some sort of iTunes in the cloud is currently in the works, where all your music and videos are stored by Apple (for a modest fee) and you can either stream directly or sync a subset of it for offline use.

>But I suspect that was an edge case that Apple didn't have in mind when they designed that feature.

Indeed, if you read the great-great parent comment, we are not talking about a device for Bear Grylls to be used in the wilderness.

Activation is an annoying concept, but except crashes like yours, a device will work just fine without a machine with iTunes nearby.

You take it into the Apple store. You know, the stores with great tech support that don't exist for PCs (yet).

Did you actually read the comment you're replying to?

In this particular anecdote, the nearest Apple store would have been in San Diego, 3200 miles away. The nearest internet connected computer capable of downloading iTunes was a mere 150 miles away in Buenaventura, a 2 hour motor launch, followed by a (weekly) night boat from the village I was in.

It was meant to illustrate that sometimes you take your mobile devices away from civilization. Suggesting that the solution is to bring them back to civilization sort of misses that point.

Not to detract from your point, but the nearest Apple Store to Buenaventura, Colombia is in Miami, Florida. That's only a 1,520 mile journey :)

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=distance+miami%2C+fl+to...

I did. But if something hard crashes, then it's a fair assumption you're going to have to take it to somewhere where they can fix it. My point is that, if you ignore the out-in-the-wilderness scenario, iPad support is probably friendlier than most PC support for normal people.

If you take your dell laptop back to PC World, don't expect much.