[Paul Acciavatti]

image via thenervousbreakdown.com

Stymied in its efforts to bring Flash Player to the iPhone, Adobe has come up with a workaround that one observer has called an "end-around:" the new Flash Professional CS5 allows Flash applications to be compiled as stand-alone iPhone apps.

"We are ecstatic to announce that we're enabling you to use your Flash development tools to build applications and compile them to run natively on the iPhone," John Loiacono, head of Adobe's Creative Solutions unit, announced at the AdobeMax conference earlier this week.

Van Baker, an analyst at The Gartner Group, suggested that Adobe's move was kind of a trick play to outflank Apple's refusal to allow Flash Player onto the iPhone. "Adobe's doing an end-around because it's in their interest," he was quoted as saying. "Adobe does an end-around to get Flash into the App Store, so from their developers' standpoint, that's a good thing." Adobe, for its part, rejected the football metaphor. "I don't think 'end-around' is accurate," Adrian Ludwig, Adobe's Flash group manager protested. "Flash developers want their content available through the browser, and we're working with Apple to see what we need to do as a software company, and as developers, to make that possible."

Apple CEO Steve Jobs disparaged Flash at last year's Apple shareholder meeting, saying that the multimedia platform "performs too slow to be useful" on the iPhone. "There's this missing product in the middle. It just doesn't exist," he told the shareholders.

The beta release of Adobe Flash Professional CS5 is expected by the end of the year.

[vedavis]

Hey, Apple just loosened up VoIP, maybe they'll open up Flash browser content bandwidth, too. In the mean time, this is positive step.

[LittleJob]

any good known apps yet with flash? i know theirs like 5 apps, but they all seem pretty cheesy.

-B

[StealthBravo]

One step closer

[DontBeJealous]

I just want to be able to access sites that wont even let you in if you dont have flash.

[ziggie216]

"performs too slow to be useful" on the iPhone.

more like Apple's hardware is too slow considering other smartphones are able to handle it now

[KoozyK]

Originally Posted by vedavis

Hey, Apple just loosened up VoIP, maybe they'll open up Flash browser content bandwidth, too. In the mean time, this is positive step.

AT&T loosened-up on voip. not apple. Apple never put restrictions on VOIP applications. Google Voice was rejected for other reasons.

[Fallguy]

Its about time we get some kind of effort to get flash on the iphone . Again apple is way behind other phones when it comes to some of the most useful tools that should have been implemented on the iphone in the first place . These bugs should have been worked out in the 3GS model . I mean if there are millions and millions of iphone users , what is AT&T doing with all that cash ? How about improving your structure and giving your customers what they want .

[billchase2]

This will bring a ton more apps to the App Store. Looking forward to it. :-)

[Averello]

Originally Posted by StealthBravo

One step closer

Apple Walker
KEEP WALKING!


Enjoy....!

[gmancuso]

This is a waste of time and effort. The VAST majority of Flash apps are complete crap. There are plenty of uses for flash that involve flv flash animation only or simple web navigation. Restrict Flash support to nav and media and all is good. We have hundreds of free Cocoa Touch fart apps. Do we really need thousands of horrendous Flash games that all look alike, work alike, and appear to have been written by the same 8th grader?

[smuggler]

if I was a developer, I'd find a way to bring flash to the broken outta jail world, why wait on apple? that quote by steve jobs doesn't make sense, flash is here to stay for the time being at least

[ecd5000]

Originally Posted by gmancuso

This is a waste of time and effort. The VAST majority of Flash apps are complete crap. There are plenty of uses for flash that involve flv flash animation only or simple web navigation. Restrict Flash support to nav and media and all is good. We have hundreds of free Cocoa Touch fart apps. Do we really need thousands of horrendous Flash games that all look alike, work alike, and appear to have been written by the same 8th grader?

well at least this is a start, better things will come, you have to start somewhere right?

[se7ensmatrix1216]

This is what I have been waiting for. As an avid designer, Flash is a key program that I use in multiple ways to work. Once this is effective, I will most certainly be purchasing CS5 for developing Apps.

[exNavy]

I must be missing something very obvious here. Flash isn't on the iPhone. So how is it all this is going to be approved by Apple to get through the app store?

From what I read sounds nice and all, but looks like you'll have to go the jailbreak route to get it on the phone.