Many of the restrictions around the iPhone OS are well documented and infamous. Here though, I lament the loss of a less regarded capability of open systems; the extensibility of existing applications themselves, and explore the closest alternative on the iPad: The web browser, and the web itself.

I have never been as happy with a piece of electronics as I am with my iPhone. It is the finest example I know of a device which is superior because it performs its limited functions astoundingly well, rather than many functions badly. The absent features (picture messages, sending texts to multiple recipients, an RSS [...]