You've got it all wrong; Apple isn't the closed system picking on the open Adobe's Flash; Flash is the closed system, Steve Jobs argues, in an open letter explaining why Apple has kicked Flash off the iPhone, iPod, and iPad. He complains that Flash is “100% proprietary,” rather than an open platform like the HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, or Apple's own WebKit, and that it's not well suited to mobile devices.
It's hard to use Flash, with its abundant rollovers, on a touch-based device, and its videos are a huge drain on battery life, he explains. Flash also has security and reliability issues—“Flash is the number one reason Macs crash.” Finally, he says Apple just doesn't want developers making apps with third-party software, and he'd rather they didn't make cross-platform apps at all. “Flash was created during the PC era,” not the mobile one, he concludes. Apple is “leaving the past behind.” (More Apple stories.)