Anyone who has paid any attention for the past couple of decades finds this totally unsurprising, not much different than it has always been for the authoritarians.

There’s a very strong indication that the Apple tablet will be sold with a mobile data connection at a subsidized cost, like many netbooks are today. This is where rumors of the device get especially worrisome. Hobbling a phone is one thing, but imagine our closed PC scenario now with AT&T (or Verizon, as many of the rumors indicate) telling you what you can and cannot do with it—-like an overbearing Mom to Apple’s despotic Dad. The thought alone makes me shudder.

As oppressive as Apple has been thus far with the iPhone, its crimes pale in comparison to what AT&T has disallowed. Yes, tethering and MMS are the obvious ones that come to mind, but AT&T has also blocked things like 3G video streaming via the Sling Media app and 3G voice calls via the Skype app. What would AT&T square up in its crosshairs if it held sway over your desktop experience? Video chat? Hulu? Fonts it doesn’t particularly care for? Yikes.

Apple defends the iPhone’s many restrictions by calling the platform a “walled garden.” It keeps the OS on lockdown to protect and make things easier for us. It's one of Apple's core design philosophies--simplicity equals usability. And yet, out of the other side of its mouth, it expounds the virus- and problem-repellent virtues of the far-less-restrictive desktop flavor of OS X.

And let's not forget--keeping the iPhone closed and under control protects two of Apple's major money-makers--the iTunes Music and App stores--in a warm blanket of exclusivity. It takes a generous cut for itself while simultaneously locking out any hint of competition.