YouTube videos are loaded into the iPhone's inbuilt Quicktime player. No flash involved.

^^
^

Okay thanks.

Another question. How can Adobe make money with a thing like Flash? I never understood that. Where is the revenue exactly, since it's free for everyone?

They sell software. Flash Media Server to stream the content, Flash Professional to design Flash apps, the AIR development platform. These are very expensive programs, and when you have a lot of control of rich media on the web and an install base larger than Windows, you can make a lot of money selling them.

To put it another way, Flash is free to consumers, but content creators and distributors pay Adobe, and nobody but Adobe because they control the platform, big bucks.

Oh. Okay, so let's say we have a site like IGN or Gamespot, who have lots of video content, now I dont know if they use Flash but if they did, would they be paying lots of money to Adobe for software, like that Server stream thingy?

It also would cost Apple a lot of money if they allowed flash. Sites like hulu, abc, nbc, etc.., all use flash to let you watch recent episodes. You have to pay for those to get it on an ipad, iphone, etc.. via the apple store. I have a hard time believing this has more to do with iphones crashing than it does with the fact that they'll lose a ton of revenue if it was allowed.

Quite likely. There are some exceptions. Youtube is one, I think because Google loves to roll their own server software and because it's historically been a huge driver for people to install Flash players.

To put into perspective how important Flash is to Adobe's revenue, there are more products on their site starting with the word 'Flash' than any other word.

ABC has a free streaming app for iPad already, and Hulu has an app in the works. I guess Apple accidentally forgot to crush it.

People think that iTunes is huge money for Apple... it really isn't. It's less than 10% of Apple's revenue, and that's divided between apps, music and video downloads. iTunes is marginally profitable, it's main purpose is to help sell high-margin hardware, which it seems to be doing rather well.

I'll let one of my favourite news sites do the reply for me.

http://www.osnews.com/story/23224/Jobs_on_Flash_Hypocrisy_So_Thick_You_Could_Cut_it_with_a_Knife

Especially:

"H264 is no better than Flash. This video codec is proprietary and patented up the wazzoo, and therefore, wholly incompatible with the very concept of an open standard. To make matters much, much worse, the licensing body that oversees H264, the MPEG-LA, has stated in no uncertain terms that they will not hesitate to sue ordinary users for using the video codec.

Why, then, is Apple, in a letter full of talk of openness and standards, promoting this closed codec, a codec that will once again shackle the web to a proprietary technology, just as we're busy breaking free from Flash? The answer is easy: follow the money.

Apple is part of the MPEG-LA, as is Microsoft. This means that the more people license H264, the more money Apple and Microsoft get, since their patents are in the patent pool. Steve Jobs might go all starry-eyed and gush about how much Apple believes in open standards and the open web, but just as with any other company - Adobe, Microsoft - this support ends where Apple's wallet begins."

That is almost all the motive explained, and because Apple unique among platform makers has total control over Apps approved they can play the game and make it work.

Good, didn't know about the ABC app. 

So far, I haven't bought an Ipad simply because I want to be able to get different sports packages (NBA, MLB, espn3.com, etc) and stream them to my TV.  Unfortunately it sounds like the Ipad won't let you do this, even if it can play it.  Both the NBA and MLB have ways to stream to the iphone/pad now, but I don't think it'll let you output it to a tv, even with the dock/adapaters (it restricts it ot certain apps/media).  Espn3 currently doesn't work on my iphone, so I doubt it does on the iPad as well.  If you have any more info on this, it would be greatly appreciated.  Right now I'm waiting for the HP Slate, as I know I can get anything on the web on it, as well as output anything on it (built in HDMI Out).

Steve Jobs' running mouth: the gift that keeps on giving.