If native optimized HTML5 video plays smoothly and Flash doesn't, nobody cares that it's not fair to compare the two. The "fracking mobile phone" point is irrelevant. Either Flash plays smoothly or it dies.
In this post however he seems to be comparing mobile-optimised HTML5 video against desktop standard Flash video. My netbook won't play HD native video but it will play optimised Flash - does this mean Flash is great on my netbook and native video must suck? Both of these are unfair comparisons. (Though I accept your point that users couldn't care less :)
No. Straw man. The point is, Flash video doesn't currently work on Android unless you re-encode it. If you're going to re-encode video, you're going to move to HTML5.
It's really this simple: Flash's bid for relevance on mobile phones is only going to work if they can make desktop Flash video work reliably.
They don't even need to make the games and stuff work properly. Stipulate that they fix that. They still fail if everyone shakes off the Flash video lockin.
Exactly. It's the "No porting necessary" bit that would be appealing and would let Flash swiftly be relevant on mobile. Little porting is fine too. But anything non trivial, like changing the user interface, puts Flash on mobile on much more equal footing with HTML5, which Flash should avoid.
