Part that and part support costs. A "locked" system (iPhone, iPad, perhaps others) is also likely to cause less problems for a totally nontechnical owner, and so less support issues for the vendor, or carrier (if 3G/4G/etc based). The software that can be purchased or otherwise loaded is restricted, and to an extent pre-screened, so far more likely to be free of malware, or of causing problems with the system or bad interactions with other software on that system.HTRN wrote:I'm not sure as to the "why" in the case of B&N, but because of the components they used, it was essentially a mid range performance tablet serving as a E-reader. I think in the case of Smartphones, the companies(both the manufacturer and the service provider) donw want the end user to have access for a variety of reasons, notably, they don't want them to be able to do things for free, that they charge extra for(notably tethering).
And as HTRN noted it also potentially allows charging for 'premium' services like tethering.
Locked devices are generally fine for most 'consumers'.
