It took the Adobe executive a few days to release an official announcement regarding the recently announced iPad and the lack of Flash support on the new device, but a statement has been made.

CTO Kevin Lynch wrote a wonderful snippet regarding user choice in technologies:

Engaging with ideas and information also means ensuring there is an open ecosystem and freedom to view and interact with the content and applications a user chooses. This model of open access has proven to be more effective in the long term than a walled approach, where a manufacturer tries to determine what users are able to see or approves and disapproves individual content and applications. We strongly believe the web should remain an open environment with consistent access to content and applications regardless of your viewing device.

While I personally hate developing in Flash and whole heartedly embrace HTML5 and CSS3 as the future of web development, that’s a personal choice.  I love the freedom to make that choice and I’ve mad the decision based on my experiences.

I think that most developers would probably switch to something besides Adobe Flash, if there were solutions available to all users.  I applaud Apple for attempting to make “the world a better place” by removing Flash from its devices, but Apple is making a choice for all users.

It’s a tough decision to make.  Do you as a company restrict users to certain content and limit their ability to do general purpose computing?  Or are you in fact doing them a favor by removing possible headaches down the road?  Only time will tell.

Found via Webmonkey