Torn about Adobe's Flash cross-compiler for iPhone/iPad

I have mixed feelings about the Adobe "Packager" that would allow ActionScript applications to run on the iPhone OS.  As a developer who has worked on Flex and Flash applications, and who knows (and likes) ActionScript I can see the value in being able to leverage those skills to create iPhone OS applications.  But more importantly, it would be a great boot for our clients to be able to target the iPhone/iPad devices with the same code that is used on their existing Web applications.  Of course, that could be said of HTML 5 as well, but we haven't been writing HTML 5 apps for over half a decade - and the expense of converting the existing Flash apps to HTML 5 is a real barrier.

Conversely, I totally understand Apple's point of view: the Flash packager would create inferior applications that would also not be exclusive to the AppStore.  And customer satisfaction could suffer from users choosing applications (that might have a lower cost) that end up being unintuitive and/or have poor performance (although I'm not sure the latter is substantiated).  So, perhaps if these apps were allowed an attribute in the AppStore could indicate if the app was native or ported (much like how the Mac System Profiler tells if applications are Intel, Universal, or PowerPC).  While this would have the effect of making Flash derived apps second class citizens, it wouldn't shut developers out completely, and the market could then decide their worth.

So the bottom line for me is that while I wouldn't condone  allowing Flash apps to masquerade as native apps to the detriment of end users - and I wouldn't personally be interested in creating new iPhone/iPad applications with Flash - I can see the value in leveraging prior work (and skills) until HTML5 gels and solutions are produced for it.