This was such a poor go to argument from Flash developers (I was/am one of them). However in reality this wasn't just about revenue as many assumed (it's a tiny tiny tiny percentage of Apples turn over). The better argument was that Flash, even wrapped in a native container (cordova etc) was insecure, slower and out of their control. Forcing developers to use native toolkits and frameworks produced far better applications as a result.

Even today the best apps are still native.