I'm missing something really fundamental about HTML5. Every time somebody has a dig at Flash, they seem to be saying how HTML5 and its video handling will replace Flash.
With of all the different usages for Flash, does anybody think that its just for movies and non-interactive animations?
For all the Javascript and CSS advances on the browser, and I do think they're fantastic, I've yet to see any site that makes me think "well that's made Flash redundant".
I've seen quite a few great Flex web sites and my own job includes the use of Flash for online gaming, nothing I've read or seen about HTML5 etc. convinces me that Flash has outlived its usefulness.
Flash is proprietary but its also ubiquitous, not necessarily a good thing but Adobe has been good at providing Flash across many platforms and has opened up more and more of its technology to others (Flex SDK, Blaze DS etc.).
I own an iPod touch and a macbook and I think they're both great pieces of kit but the past few weeks of reading about Apple's attitude has meant I will have to think very hard about buying another piece of kit from them.
If any other company wants to sell software and media to the public that requires specific hardware, I'd expect to have to buy that hardware very cheaply. A game console is often sold at a loss because it provides a platform to sell games. A smartphone comes free because we buy a contract for the calls and data usage.
If I have to pay a premium for good hardware, I'll make that decision. If the hardware company then dictates what I can and can't do, severly reducing its usefulness, well I might just have to walk away.
It took them long enough to get Java up to date on OSX,
I've drooled over the iPhone for a while but I'm tempted by an Android handset just because of Apple's behaviour. And my next laptop might be dual booting Windows and Linux. I won't have to worry whether Java will be available, there's plenty of great open source and/or multi platform software out there.
Apple still has a lot of stuff that other companies can only aspire to but freedom, choice and affordability seem to be lower and lower in the list of things Apple are good at.
Or maybe I'm just bitter because the iPad is too expensive for me to justify buying one.