Flash comes to iPhone thanks to Skyfire app

Well, not Flash as such

Flash comes to iPhone thanks to Skyfire app. Phones, Flash, Adobe, Apple, Browsers, Skyfire, Safari, iOS 0

2 November 2010 16:26 GMT / By Ben Crompton

It looks like those of you using iOS will be able to play Flash videos very shortly through the new Skyfire mobile browser, which Fortune has recently detailed.

According to 9to5 Mac the app was submitted in August, and has recently been approved by Apple - which if true will make iOS platform a real all-rounder.

Skyfire is a full browser built on top of the native Safari browser you'll find on your iDevice, meaning when a messge saying that you "can't view this video" pops up, you'll be able to play the content by way of a handy thumbnail.

Saying it plays Flash isn't strictly true, however, as the browser turns Flash into H.264 (a codec for HTML5) video which iOS devices are more than happy to use. Somehow we can't imagine this technicality worrying the end user.

As the press release puts it: "The “Video” icon [on Skyfire] enables users to play millions of Flash videos around the web that otherwise do not play on mobile. This unlocks content trapped behind those error messages with question marks and blue Legos by transcoding the Flash content into HTML5 on Skyfire’s servers".

The Skyfire app is now available for download.