Nick Dillon, with Ovum[1. I can’t find a link to the original report, so here’s the link to Macgasm’s story.]:
With support for Flash 10.1 growing, users will become accustomed to a similar web browsing experience on both mobile and desktop devices; this will ultimately impact the attractiveness of Apple’s proposition. Flash certainly looks to be gaining ground with device vendors and Apple may need to re-evaluate its position if its dominance is threatened as a result. In addition to garnering support for Flash 10, Adobe has launched its own app distribution service for Flash and AIR applications. InMarket will help developers to sell their apps across various devices. This is clearly a big draw for developers and will threaten the dominance of platform vendors in the mobile apps market.
Just stop and think about this for a moment. Apple has left Flash off of its mobile products for three years, while continuing to grow in its anti-Flash retoric. HTML5’s video functionality has taken off mainly because of Apple’s stance on Flash. Putting Flash on iOS devices would greatly hinder — if not completely derail — HTML5’s growth.
Yes, Flash runs on Android. And for the most part, Android devices choke if Flash is turned on. Apple isn’t going to enable a feature if it leads to stability or speed issues on its devices.
Analysts are such idiots.