By Stephen Schenck | September 9, 2011 5:16 PM
Apple’s as stubborn as ever when it comes to Adobe Flash on iOS, but a new software release from Adobe targets Apple’s mobile platform with the aim of bringing at least part of the Flash experience to its users.
Adobe recently announced its Flash Media Server 4.5 and Flash Access 3.0, tools used by producers and distributors of Flash content to serve them out to end-users. Among the new features is built-in support for converting Flash video to a format viewable on the iPhone (HTTP Live Streaming).
The problem is, this feels less like a step towards real compatibility, and more like a well-polished work-around. Apple users have already been able to use alternative browsers like Skyfire to access transcoded Flash video. All this seems to be doing is cutting out the middle-man and letting Adobe’s software prepare the video for iOS users. It’s also worth noting that this software only addresses the compatibility issues with Flash video, and there’s no new effort to bring other kinds of Flash content to the iPhone. Still, we suppose it’s progress of some kind; look for more sites to offer iPhone compatibility as this software is adopted by content providers.
