Apple briefly banned the ability to code iOS apps using 3rd party dev tools, but then relaxed the restrictions: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/09/09/apple_no_longer_banning_third_party_ios_development_tools.html

The best-case scenario for RIA developers is to have a single code base that has multiple profiles for publishing to different devices. Adobe is using Flash Builder for this exact scenario. FB 4.5 allows a developer to have multiple profiles for Android, iPhone, iPad, numerous other tablets, Web, etc....

Also, Adobe AIR SDK 2.7 really improves the performance of SWF apps published for iOS devices and other devices in general. There is a noticeable difference. I think that Adobe still has a very relevant future in rich internet applications.

I'm not sure about other developers, but I'd rather write my app in a single language and then deploy it to every platform I want to publish to.

The main attraction of the PNG format for use in web development is the alpha layer, which makes the saved PNG a 32-bit per pixel image (8-bits for R/G/B/A). The quality of a transparent PNG is so much better than the quality of a transparent GIF b/c each pixel of the GIF has to be a color - there can't be any alpha values. So unless the transparent image you need is going to be on a mostly-the-same-color background, a transparent GIF is useless.

It is not feasible that you can take a GIF or JPG and convert it to a transparent PNG and have the same file size, especially if the file size of the GIF or JPG is pretty large. 32-bit is the lowest you can save out a transparent PNG (if there is a way to save it out lower, please let me know).

I DO think that it's worth the file size increase to use PNGs on websites whose designs required transparency in alot of places. Otherwise, I'm not sure the advantage of using PNGs in everyday situations. If the image is photo-like, use compressed JPGs. If it's full of text (and can't be HTML text), use the lowest amount of colors possible for a respectable-looking GIF.