[thinkloop]

The issue is that flash was a complete runtime, capable of running the equivalent of any app. If flash were allowed to survive, ios could very likely have ended up nothing more than a dumb vm upon which flash apps are run. I remember wondering at the time why flash didn't make a flash phone that did exactly this. They had momentum, tools, and developers, and unlike on the web, there are no downsides relative to native apps.

[redial]

Flash was an inefficient, non-touch optimized, full-of-security-holes competitor's runtime...why would they want it on the iPhone again? when a version for it finally arrived, years later on Andriod, it was so awful that even Adobe realized it wasn't worth murdering everyone's battery life only to have flash web-ads visible.

[thinkloop]

There is nothing inherent to flash that requires it to have security flaws and no touch. The flash vm operates in the same space as the Android and iOS VMs. If it were iterated and improved, and allowed to flourish it could have been a direct competition to native, possibly eventually leading to a flash OS and flash phone, all the pieces are there.

[redial]

Everything can be anything given enough work and time, even JavaScript. The truth is nobody wanted to do all the work required, not even Adobe. Flash's demise is not on Apple, or Google, or Macromedia. It is entirely on Adobe for failing to adapt and modernize it to make it competitive.

[thinkloop]

It seems we agree on all points. If Adobe was good, flash could have been the mobile platform. That's too large a risk for Apple to take.