Apple's engineering decisions have produced a platform that works pretty well and is enjoyable to develop for. They've sold a lot of handsets as a result. If it weren't for these decisions, then the sales wouldn't have happened and Adobe wouldn't be trying to strongarm their way onto the platform.
In short, decisions such as not supporting Flash are in fact part of the OS's appeal and this entire debate is bizarre.
Furthermore, Adobe's entire argument that developers and consumers should shun Apple's lock-in for Adobe's lock-in is absolutely absurd!
edit: In thinking about it, the danger of an Adobe (or any other vendor) monopoly on the write once, run anywhere application market is huge. It's several orders of magnitude greater in significance than that of Apple controlling the development environment for its own devices.
Apple will have a large market share in internet-connected devices for quite some time, but it probably won't ever command a majority of marketshare in any given segment (it will command an abnormally huge amount of revenue share though, the way it does with PCs and now phones). If you don't like what Apple offers you as a developer, there are plenty of other targets. If Adobe gets its way and controls the runtime everywhere, and even assuming it works and is fast everywhere (it won't be), then all developers are probably screwed.
Lastly, it's disappointing that Google in recent times has reneged on its relative commitment to HTML5 given its Android and Chrome development decisions to bundle flash into both platforms. This is a much more significant development, with much greater consequences, than changes to the iPhone dev agreement because Android and Chrome, in various forms, are likely to be run on the plurality of devices going forward. We need HTML5 to succeed flash, but this won't happen until the infrastucture is built: implementations need to get faster, dev tools need to be built, et cetera and Google's decisions have likely impeded this process by removing some of the incentive for these things to happen.
While native apps are amazing and performs real well on iPhone and iPad,performance of web apps is a disaster on these devices. iPhone struggles to render even the basic javascript effects properly. Having said that i am not disappointed by this. I do not expect the iPhone to provide a full blown internet experience. Its a freaking phone! I still dont get why Adobe tries so hard to provide Flash on Iphone.
On the other hand, the choppy -almost unusable- HTML5 experience on iPad, makes me feel like these devices arent optimized to provide rich experience within the browser realm. Perhaps Apple wants us to depend more on the app store than the web based apps (Google's business).
"Furthermore, Adobe's entire argument that developers and consumers should shun Apple's lock-in for Adobe's lock-in is absolutely absurd!"
I don't have a problem with blocking the Flash plug-in. What I have a problem with is blocking native iPhone apps that were developed in Flash (even if they pass the review process).
But, I totally agree with the "write once, develop anywhere" danger. IMO, this is the real reason Apple is blocking all types of Flash content. Sounds great to a developer but it would completely change the uniqueness of the App store.
In short, decisions such as not supporting Flash are in fact part of the OS's appeal and this entire debate is bizarre.
Furthermore, Adobe's entire argument that developers and consumers should shun Apple's lock-in for Adobe's lock-in is absolutely absurd!
edit: In thinking about it, the danger of an Adobe (or any other vendor) monopoly on the write once, run anywhere application market is huge. It's several orders of magnitude greater in significance than that of Apple controlling the development environment for its own devices.
Apple will have a large market share in internet-connected devices for quite some time, but it probably won't ever command a majority of marketshare in any given segment (it will command an abnormally huge amount of revenue share though, the way it does with PCs and now phones). If you don't like what Apple offers you as a developer, there are plenty of other targets. If Adobe gets its way and controls the runtime everywhere, and even assuming it works and is fast everywhere (it won't be), then all developers are probably screwed.
Lastly, it's disappointing that Google in recent times has reneged on its relative commitment to HTML5 given its Android and Chrome development decisions to bundle flash into both platforms. This is a much more significant development, with much greater consequences, than changes to the iPhone dev agreement because Android and Chrome, in various forms, are likely to be run on the plurality of devices going forward. We need HTML5 to succeed flash, but this won't happen until the infrastucture is built: implementations need to get faster, dev tools need to be built, et cetera and Google's decisions have likely impeded this process by removing some of the incentive for these things to happen.