[mapgrep]

Interesting that Apple allows this, not just on Macs but on iOS devices. When Adobe wanted to cross-compile Flash for iOS, here is what Steve Jobs wrote:

"We know from painful experience that letting a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in sub-standard apps and hinders the enhancement and progress of the platform. If developers grow dependent on third party development libraries and tools, they can only take advantage of platform enhancements if and when the third party chooses to adopt the new features. We cannot be at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our developers.

"This becomes even worse if the third party is supplying a cross platform development tool. The third party may not adopt enhancements from one platform unless they are available on all of their supported platforms. Hence developers only have access to the lowest common denominator set of features. Again, we cannot accept an outcome where developers are blocked from using our innovations and enhancements because they are not available on our competitor’s platforms."

http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/

FWIW, I've always thought this was an overly broad generalization.

[pudquick]

You must have missed the part where Apple relented on that:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20015954-264.html

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/09/09Statement-by-Apple...

"In particular, we are relaxing all restrictions on the development tools used to create iOS apps, as long as the resulting apps do not download any code. This should give developers the flexibility they want, while preserving the security we need."

(which is why I see so many Unity games on the App Store these days)

[lwat]

There's still no flash on my iPad though.

[eropple]

But you can use Flash to build iOS applications, though. (Or, rather, ActionScript; there are a number of different tools that allow this.)

[tyree732]

While that may have been a general policy, I always just assumed that was Apple preventing Flash from becoming a part of the App Store ecosystem.