Why all this argument over a piece of technology? Must it really be one or the other?
I for one use "clicktoflash" on my macbook to be able to use the promised 7 hours. With flash enabled I'm lucky to get 5. When watching a full flash based movie, I'm lucky if my macbook lasts 3 hours.
Your post is a paradox. In the first part (above), you seem to understand why Flash has no place on a mobile device, and int he second part (below) you lose your grip on the reasoning.
Look at what Flash did to your MacBook. Your MacBook is more powerful than your iPad. What do you think Flash does to a mobile device's battery life. Flash is slow, it's buggy, and it's a resource hog. The Flash "mobile experience" is a joke. It just doesn't work well. The only people who seem to say it works are the Flash/Android fanboys in this thread. EVERY OTHER user in the entire world, it seems, has problems with it.
Again I ask: What does Flash bring to the table? Why does the future need Flash? We surely don't need it to stream video. We don't need it to make websites look nice. We don't need it for games.
But that's the whole argument isn't it? I'm on a website watching a full movie in flash format. I'm not very knowledgable on this whole dilemma, but it seems like bad business to have a media store such as itunes, and allow a piece of tech that would take away business. I for once buy no movies or shows from itunes once I've seen them on the web. It may not be the best image quality, but it certainly saves from $50 to $100 monthly. And I'm watching them in flash and on my macbook instead of my "comfortable" ipad because I can't find them, at least most of them, in a format on the web supported by the Ipad or iphone.
I'll ignore the whole issue that you're likely pirating movies. And we will ignore the fact that Hulu, Netflix, YouTube, HBO Go, and all sorts of other native apps exist for the iPad that allow you to stream movies in fantastic quality. I'll also ignore that I can't even think of a single website, outside of Hulu, that allows you to legally stream movies for free (if there are others, I really don't care.)
Moving on: This is the part of the post where you lose it. The ability for Flash to stream video has absolutely nothing to do with why Apple doesn't allow it in iOS. This is the exact same incorrect argument that was made about ads. HTML5 allows you to stream video. Any website that streams video using Flash can simply use HTML5 to stream it instead. Apple does not "prevent" that, despite that it may, in your opinion, hurt their revenue. Apple doesn't lock down their system and prevent people from putting whatever content they want, or viewing whatever content they want. I've streamed porn on my iPad. Works perfect. They simply don't let Flash on the device. That's all. Use HTML5 instead, and you're good to go.
Doesn't matter if companies are dumping Flash for HTML5, the point is many webpages are still coded with Flash now. Pandora is just 1 website. One of the simple benefits to moving to HTML5 is cost as it's an open format unlike Flash which is proprietary. I'm all for HTML5 however not at the cost of losing access to Flash-only sites that I frequent now.
It does matter. The point is that websites are dropping Flash. Pandora & FaceBook are two of the biggest names on the web, and they don't use Flash now. That's significant. What you're missing is that if people don't start dropping Flash then we'll never be able to get away from it.
These websites want people to view their content. These websites want nothing more than to serve content to as many people as possible. If iPads (the absolute most popular tablet on Earth) can't see your Flash webpage, and if you don't have a native app, then that website is going to be left in the dust. You can bet your balls these websites are going to switch over to HTML5. There's absolutely no reason to stick with Flash.
See, what you also have to realize is this: Let's look at Pandora. It was coded in Flash originally. That means that Pandora is reliant upon Adobe to make sure that Flash works perfectly, is maintained, and is secure. Pandora is huge. Can you imagine your company being totally reliant on another to work perfectly? I can't. The same plays for Apple: they would be totally reliant upon Adobe to make a nice version of Flash and then Apple would have all their eggs in one basket with Flash for Safari. That's scary. There's no room for screw ups like that in the mobile industry. And let's be honest. Adobe is not the company you want to be placing all your bets with.
Clearly, we can see that it is in no company's interest to keep using Flash. Flash was a crutch due to a lack of web technology at the time. Technology has improved, and that crutch is no longer needed.
RIP FLASH!
