I guess this must be because Apple doesn't allow Adobe access to its proprietary, hardware based empty loop optimizations...
This is because Mainconcept's H.264 decoder doesn't have Altivec optimizations, only x86 SIMD. The VP6 and FLV decoders, as far as I know, do have Altivec, probably because back when they were released, PowerPC was a significant market.
We tried that once but gave up after finding out that turning on a blur filter would segfault the Flash Player. Whoops!
A sense of which, unfortunately, is in very, very low supply around here.
I was reacting to what I think is an occasional problem with HN. In a nutshell, some people here take "serious" so far that it turns into "puritanically self-righteously lacking in any sense or awareness of humor or irony." That can lead to really bizzare misfires of communication.
Case in point is the reaction to a recent comment by Jrockway's on the anti-IRS nutcase: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1135693 (again, please don't feel the need to say whether you find his comment funny or in poor taste or whatever).
The second reply is somewhere in the middle -- at least it didn't start out with "OMG you are a terrible person how could you say that!!!11" I don't know who jrockway is: maybe he's making a joke, and maybe not. It's more likely that he's making a joke, but you never can tell on teh intarwebs... even in a place like HN.
Regardless, I wouldn't consider pw0ncakes' comment puritanical or self-righteous in the least: in fact he/she slightly revels in the possibility of fat-cat execs getting their comeuppance.
[1] Though I don't disagree with your point; I have indeed seen the issue of which you speak, though I can't think of any specific examples.
Adobe, on the other hand, hasn't fixed any of their problems. And they've had much longer to fix their problems than Apple has. Hell, it took less time for Apple to create a problem that had to be fixed then for Adobe to fix their problems.
(Not to say Apple has an institutional problem, but, speaking in general.)
I hate that Apple has made its phone OS a walled garden. I won't buy one, and I won't develop for it, but this article doesn't really have anything to do with it.