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While Flash is pretty awful, I think it's plain the only reason Apple doesn't want it on their devices is because it allows for functionality that Apple don't want you to access without you paying them. http://listen.grooveshark.com/, for example, completely voids any reason to pay for music over iTunes. Not to mention the thousands of games and other content that offers an alternative on their proprietary store front hardware.

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Yes, because there're aren't Last.fm and Pandora apps, not to mention thousands of games, for free in the app store. The app store that comes free on the hardware. And I totally bought every singe one of the 9,358 songs in my library from the iTunes store.

Say what you want about Apple's approval policies or how the iPad is going to kill babies because it's closed, but the lack of flash is clearly a performance/user experience decision over a political one.

And a lot of Flash games wouldn't be playable on the iPhone anyway, because they assume (1) a keyboard, (2) a mouse cursor, and/or (3) multiple mouse buttons -- none of which the iPhone has, or can easily emulate.

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