What Mike Loukides overlooks while discovering that HTML5 is important is that initially "developers" complained when Apple, and Jobs, said "to put your apps on the iPhone, use HTML5". The iPhone was released without an Objective C SDK. Developers didn't want to make HTML5 apps, begged for the Objective C SDK, and we got what we asked for.
Apple doesn't need to be persuaded about HTML5, developers do. A majority of the apps on my iPhone would work just fine as HTML5 apps.
HTML5 apps on the iPhone are true citizens. They are installable from the web (no app store required). They are stored on the iPhone and run offline. They use persistent storage. You can even program games:
> "And there’s no easier way to get an app than by installing it right from its website - that’s right, easier than the App Store. One tap and you’re set. Because it’s a web app, see. Not one of those where you need to be online either - once you add Pie Guy to your home screen, it’ll run even when you’re not connected to the Internet. And of course, your game will be saved to a local database. Read on."
http://mrgan.tumblr.com/post/257187093/pie-guy
Write once run anywhere HTML5 is nearly within reach largely thanks to the ubiquity of WebKit. Apple made WebKit truly "open", its openness driving adoption as a core technology across multiple devices. Adobe's Flash runtime being bundled in Chrome isn't the same sort of open, so Adobe has some work to do to put Flash everywhere.
However, I'd prefer Adobe sort out how to let their same developer tools generate HTML5 apps built for each phone. That's the right kind of open: Adobe's tools would generate the same readable text files a human can with notepad, but the tools become worth buying as a productivity booster, not as the way to publish opaque files to a proprietary plugin.