Please take the time to read this
I read it all too.
And firstly:
"3G will drain your battery just as much if not more as Flash does"
That is correct. People need 3G though. So running flash + 3G = no battery life at all. And I think this is what Jobs is hinting at with his "I hate flash speech". On their own Flash and 3G are not bad on the battery. But put the two together and it's not good. And I'd like to see what the ipad clones battery life is with flash+3G running at the same time.
Yes flash can do a lot of stuff at the moment I agree with you. But . . . well I see it this way:
Flash:
Pluses - Looks pretty, a lot of the web uses it, easy enough to code with if you know what you're doing, is an established codec to use
Minuses - A lot of the web uses it (all those ugly pointless poor quality flash ads), requires me to have extra plugins, uses way to much of my cpu, lack of decent OS X supprt from Adobe.
Html5
Pluses - Needs no additional plugins to work, uses a lot less of my cpu then flash, is being slowly adopted as we speak, can be seen anywhere, even in mobile devices liek iphone/ipad
Minuses - Not yet a completed standard, many websites have not yet or refuse to switch over to html5.
So neither flash or html is perfect. So it's more about picking the one thst suits you more. For me apart from one little facebook game I do not need flash, so I am in the html 5 camp. And so is Apple.
And if you look at the history of mainstream computing, it is not about choice. It never has been. It's been about how well you can use what is dumped infront of you. Be it Apple or MS neither officially support hacking your OS to modify it to just how you want. All the hackers moved to linux where you can hack to your hearts content and all the linux devs will love you for it.
For the 2 big players Apple and MS, they just plop infront of you, Windows or OS X. And you live with their limitations or wither not use a computer or move to linux.
And how this relates to html5 vs flash is this:
The iphone OS is no different to any other OS in the respect that it's just Apple giving you an OS and you have only one choice, use it or don't use it and don't use the devices it runs on. That's just life.
And about this you said:
"Thus, Adobe should stop treating Mac customers like second-class citizens and just *fix Flash.* "
I think your comments th this are wrong. Well in a way only. I don't think Adobe should fix flash. Cause I think there is nothing to be fixed. Flash needs to be retired to a green pasture where it can live the rest of it's life in peace and quietly die.
Nothing in the computing world lasts for ever. Yes we need death to bring about new progess. OS X came around and killed OS 9. W7 killed vista. etc etc. And I think flash is the same. In it's day flash was relitavely good and a good purpose on the internet. But today Adobe is just lazy and want to keep milking their cash cow for more money. This cow being flash. If Adobe were smart they'd move on to something even better and make even more money.
In my opinion flash is already a legacy codec. And Apple was the one of the first to make a move away to something new. Nothing lasts for ever. And though flash was once useful, I loved it back in the day, now it needs to die to let soemthing new and improved take it's place.
You said this:
"Bottom line if Apple wants to provide the "end user" (they're always talking about end user design) with a great Web experience they should allow us to make the choice and not dictate what we can and can't view...Apple is just blocking Flash for corporate gain.."
Agreed corporate gain is one thing apple is doing just like any other company would do. Apple is also moving with the times. Better to be ahead of the tech curve then behind it. And sure by doing this you have to say bye bye to a few things. And adobe are cut that Apple said goodbye to their flash.
I am sure if Apple were not as strong as they are today that Adobe would say bye bye to them too and not support OS X anymore. You just have to know when to get out of something and move on to the even better. And I think now is an awesome time for Adobe. They have just the opportunity to kill flash with soemthing even better (hopefully not plugin based). And this something could take the world by storm and become the next net standard.
Adobe can kill flash by their own hands as I said above or wait a while and someone else kill it. If I was CEO of adobe I'd be putting all my R&D money into flash's successor. And heck that move might even get some brownie points with Apple/google/MS etc.
You said this"
"The Mac version of Flash IS BUGGY"
And your responce is that is "wrong". And I agree with you "flash is buggy" is wrong. For me flash just works on my imac. Be it in safari, FireFox, Opera or a FLV video in VLC. Not one issue. I can't say the same for MS's silverlight. Major POS that is is every way pssible.
The only bad thing about flash's performance is it using up way to much of my cpu. I really don't like that. But I would call that a flash design fault and not a bug. So on the whole I agree with you flash is not buggy at all. But poorly designed - heck yes.
You said this:
"And I think it's just Apple's idea that flash one day will be out dated and useless. And think this is the future and are making a stand now so they are not left behind."
And you claim flash is far from dead. I disagree. My opinion is as I stated above, I feel flash in it's corrent form is a legacy codec that people still insist on supporting. Adobe need to move on to flash X or whatever they want to call it. Something that is not flash but does the same thing and is 100x better (and hopefully no plugins required) but I won't be dissapointed if one is needed. Html5 is not flash but does a lot of what flash can do. And I'm sure by the time all the new flash features are done, html will have a lot more features too.
So my final opinion on this war is:
Apple - I agree do not support flash.
Adobe - Use this prime time to work on a successor to flash that is not flash but does the same stuff only better. And stop relying on legacy codecs.
Everyone else - Wait and see if Adobe are making a better altenative to flash or just Flash version whatever. And if it's just flash rebranded, then move on and don't support legacy codecs.