There are basically two options: 1. You can take a tactical approach and get a Flash player today thereby increasing Flash content on the web
2. You can take a strategic approach and trade short term convince for long term openness and compatibility. I prefer option 2. People like Flex prefer option 1.
First of all you are putting words in my mouth and I would really appreciate if we could avoid that because it's irritating. Secondly, I do not believe it is that easy because what you consider "short term convince" is called innovation and that means it is not short term at all, Flash has always been and will always be more advanced than HTML, it's not like HTML is catching up! For as long as Flash will allow developers to do today what HTML will allow to do in 5 years (if ever at all) this war will be worthless and would not even exist if it was not Apple. Thirdly, Flash/Flex is way, way.... way way way more open and compatible than anything Apple!
Here is latest news on Apple and Adobe battle. Seems like Adobe wants Flash support in apple devices which seems to be a rare possibilty. Article is about new adobe product called Wallaby that can convert falsh to html
Now Adobe is turning its HTML5 attentions to Flash with the release of Wallaby, a new Flash-to-HTML5 converter.
You know what that product says, right? Before all, it is not a product actually it is an "experiment" from Adobe's "labs", this said the "experiment" with code name "Wallaby" sends a clear message to all the haters who spread lies about Flash being responsible for ads or basic animations: here, have it in HTML! Adobe is cleansing Flash of all the crappy use cases to leave room for the new era of Flash which is Flex and AIR. I could post again the video with CEOs from ARM, Google, HTC, Motorola, Palm, Intel, Nvidia and others all saying that Flash is a critical component of the future of mobility, but you could also do your home work and google a bit.
So you're not being paid to post on this forum in support of adobe products?
If I was I could not do this, truth is I have never been a company's employee in my entire life, ever. That makes my strength: I chose my technologies, my tools and I pick every single of my clients. If I claim something rocks I believe it from bottom of my guts, same thing when I claim something sucks. Look, I am really good at what I do and if HTML was the new and better alternative to Flash I would probably be one of the references for it.
You say Apple does not cut it and claim that there is some sort of conspiracy, but this argument has been going on for over a year. In that time Adobe has been unable to ship a mobile version of that Flash runs well on a significant portion of existing hardware. Even now the gold versions struggle and promises of a quality user experience slip from beta to beta.
You are correct, except for the betas (I guess you refer to Flash Player 10.2) for which the feedback all along has been very positive, same for the final releases on pc, linux, mac and now on mobiles. If you were among the couple of thousand "facebook friends" of mine (including about 30 Adobe employees and people from Apple) you would know what I think of it because I am as critical of Adobe as I am of any other company. Turns out there are reasons why Adobe was late on Mobile but still its their responsibility. However, the problem has been addressed and the feedback for Flash Player 10.2 across computers and mobiles is overwhelming, those are facts.
I would have been supportive of Apple if the message was "Adobe, we love you but get your act together or (and in the meantime) go play somewhere else". Adobe would have reacted the way they did which was to work their asses off to make Flash the best thing on mobile. I could again post the video demos from all over the place but you can also do your home work and google a bit. Flash is now ready to rock and roll from phones to tablets to TVs on top of its existing penetration on 99% of all computers, there is nothing Apple's PR and propaganda army can do about it (anymore) as the opposite forces have been underestimated (or someone saw a bit too big). Only Flash's performance and applications on mobile will define its future on mobile, like everywhere else. If it is that bad it will fail, truth is it never did and walked through war after war against the giants (always attacked, never attacking), it's still standing and undefeated.
Second question, in order to meet the needs of more people, would it not be better to have the OPTION in the browser settings to use flash or not?
Going back to my previous answer above, the option would be offered if the real motives were performance but they are not, performance and security issues have been misused as weapons against Adobe over Flash. Some studies shown that HTML5 is as bad as Flash for performance when used for the same purpose, and there is a lot of warnings and issues (including lawsuits) with Apple about privacy and security over iOS so Apple is not in a position to criticize Flash really, I am even surprised Jobs was able to get it through, I thought Apple consumers smarter than that. I guess that's the price to pay for not being the underdog anymore.
In the meantime, Google's engineers decided to work with Adobe's and sandbox Flash for security, optimize it for performance and bake it in Chrome to make sure it's always up to date, while Nvidia's engineers did the same to make Flash on Tegra 2 "mind blowing" (as per Nvidia's CEO), ARM's engineers also joined forces to optimize Flash "on the full range of underpowered devices" (as per ARM's CEO), so did DoCoMo, Intel, RIM and so on with pretty much all the leading tech companies involved in mobile except Apple which in the meantime keeps spreading the lies and propaganda through their PR and fans armada just to maintain the status quo. If we look back at history this looks pretty imperialistic to me and we all know what happened to every empire.
