[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] russellzauner:
1. B&N could simply use a dual scheme to unlock enough security for developers/hobbyists. One works for official support with all the content providers the other allows you to do whatever you want but doesnt include the DRM pieces so your working from scratch. They dont even have to change anything in the hardware so no burden of dual SKU. Just make it clear in TOS that they will not heal your NT if you go that route. Or better yet, charge you $10 to go to store with magic unbricking/restore to default card, lol. Gives customers a chance to go back if they decide they don't like the experience, for whatever reason.

2. There is a bigger strategy going on in cheap tablet space. I'll hang up my tinfoil hat and leave it at that.

3.Nobody will ever get root on the Playbook. You can quote me on that. Entire countries ban RIM technology because the government can't crack it, any government. Thier core business is securing communications. I have no idea why they're selling so cheap with the features they have but my guess is the display is more of a Ford truck than a Tesstarossa as well as their services will not be cheap. They could give them away probably, but why would you if you're the only playa in secure tablets? Security comes at a premium.

4. Distribution. For books, this device pushes nearly the entire burden of cost onto the customer. Streaming media, not so much. It costs more to keep an internet radio station going than a purveyor of ebooks. Even if they sold fully hackable devices, if only 10% of the customers bought 5 books at 5 bucks each, compared to the costs incurred to distribute even a moderately successful paperback...They could sell either the fire or nook tablet at half price, unlocked, and still make a healthy profit. Amazon is going to prove that in spades, even without the warm fuzzy of an sd slot security blanket. The cost difference in these two is hardware, make no mistake. More internal storage and a cpu that binned out faster easily account for BOM/mfg delta. I am surprised they can put the display on it at those price points. They have to give up the other hardware to keep the expenditure flat.

5. Honesty. We watch a lot of foreign tv, when we have time. I would love that I could run the same tools I do on my Linux box for indexing, queueing, dowloading, cataloguing, and playback on even my NC. Even without full 1080p, the screen is small so pixelization is minimized and reproduces amazing fidelity and quality compared to anything anywhere near the price point. HW acceleration still doesn't look to be at its full potential (which to me means it can get even better). Not sure whether thats rockplayer or system SW/FW, prolly combination.

I did read this whole thread BTW. My guess is that you'll be able to run ICS in a couple months of hobby time but all the content services won't be as collectively caught up with thier offerings. There is the chance of opening up after they notice they lost a few 100k sales to Fire to hobbyists. I would like to think it would be more but in my experience (I'm writing this on a NC and at least 4 people at work have bought one on my recommendation, as well as me working with an extremely technically literate population) I would easily concur with whoever pegged the stock NC being at 80% of users, if not 5-10% more.