Recently in discussing Flash on the iPad, I was told to admit that I’m an Apple fanboy. I hate to disappoint you but to “admit” such a thing would be lying. If anything I’m a UNIX fanboy. I’m not a fan of Apple’s draconian App Store policies or many of their PR policies. I use a Mac laptop because it’s the only decent UNIX laptop. Not because it’s an Apple product.

And I’m particularly anti-Flash.

It’s a fact that Flash either does not run, or runs very poorly on all UNIX platforms. I have never liked Flash. HTML5 and MP4 however do work very well on my Solaris 10 workstation. And on Linux. And on BSD. And yes, on a Mac.

It’s also a fact that Flash is responsible for the most browser crashes on the Mac (and other UNIX variants as well). If you made a car with a hood ornament that was the leading cause of auto accidents and the hood ornament maker could fix it by changing the shape or material but refused to, all the while you are being blamed for those accidents, what would you do? It seems pretty obvious. You get rid of the damned hood ornament.

But even if Apple did want to include Flash, the iPad is 64-bit, and Adobe refuses to make a 64-bit version of flash. It also runs on Apple’s A4 chip, which Flash does not run on. Will Adobe bother to port it? I doubt it. The code in Flash is probably so bad that it would be nearly impossible without a complete rewrite.

I’m even pretty ecstatic about Silverlight. Not because I like it, but because it weakens Flash. Flash and Silverlight will duke it out, injuring each other, meanwhile HTML5 will come out the winner. Which makes us all winners.