That's why the war on general purpose computing is so upsetting: it seeks to turn general purpose tools into appliances.
It isn’t this change that made them into appliances, it was their natural change in usage - as noted by a previous poster.
But this will affect the future programmers and tinkerers, too. It's as if they are no longer wanted. "But, " you could argue, "hobbyists and enthusiasts can buy specialized hardware". Well, many if not most of the generation of enthusiasts that made the computing world of today possible started with general purpose hardware, not special hardware. They took the common hardware of their day and built stuff with it, doing things that were often not entirely foreseen by the makers of said hardware. And they didn't ask for permission.
If the world of tomorrow consists of most people using gadgets like iphones and ipads, and in order to tinker you need special-purpose hardware, I think we're shooting future kids in their collective feet.
I think this is a correct statement, for the reason that what was once a enthusiast activity (using computers) becomes a necessity, and tolerance of problems reduces drastically when your life/salary depends on it working flawlessly.
Imagine saying these things about a dishwasher? Who’d care if the circuitry driving the buttons controlling the pumps etc is proprietary and e waste when it’s dead.