I've done quite a bit of research on the flash vs apple debate, being a flash developer, and there are a lot of factors to keep in mind.
It seems like the main excuse Apple is using is that Flash is a resource hog. That may be the case on smaller less powerful devices like smartphones and ipads, but what they don't tell you is the alternatives for flash including html5 and things like jQuery are just as resource hungry if not more. If you have the time and are interested just do a quick search on youtube or google. You will see all sorts of videos and accounts of people doing side by side comparisons of flash and html5 and the effects those files have on their system resources. Flash holds up pretty well.
The other thing I'm noticing is that many developers are coming forward saying that html5 MAY be a good replacement for flash in the future, but it isn't quite there now. For some things like youtube videos, html5 is good to go, but in other areas, like interactive content, html5 is where flash was 10 years ago.
You see you have to look at these different technologies like a country more so than just a language. Each country speaks their own language. One language may or may not be better than the other, but that other language has been around alot longer and so it may have more people writing it, better ways to write it and more documentation and ideas on how to write it in different ways. So that means Flash and html5 are more than just code. It's a community of developers and users. It is the people that write the code, the sites that utilize the code, the applications that are used to make that code and the user-friendliness of those applications. At this point in time Flash has a leg up in those categories.
Html5 may get there some day, but I would guess your ipad will be packed away in some box deep in your closet when it happens. And by then you will be messing around on your new and improved toy. In the meantime, there is large portion of the web that is unavailable to these iphone/ipad users. If apple is truly keeping their customers best interest in mind they would have found a way to put flash on these devices and let their users decide if they want to deal with resource hogging applications or use a different alternative to flash if a better one does truly exist. But I don't think this move is about keeping their customers best interests in mind. I don't think that is the case one bit.
