Well, the difference is that iPhone OS is only meant to run a few specific Apple devices. Flash is so integral now that to stay alive it must be able to run on anything that loads web pages.
As such, it makes much more sense to open up Flash. Even if Apple opened iPhone OS, that would only solve the problem for Apple's devices (assuming Adobe acted upon the openness, though I don't see any reason why they would or why they don't have enough info to create it now), and everyone else's beefs with Flash would still exist.
As such, it makes much more sense to open up Flash. Even if Apple opened iPhone OS, that would only solve the problem for Apple's devices (assuming Adobe acted upon the openness, though I don't see any reason why they would or why they don't have enough info to create it now), and everyone else's beefs with Flash would still exist.