SkyFire Proves Users Want Flash on the iPhone

Written by Dave Courbanou 1
November 11, 2010

Skyfire ranks among the hottest apps in the Apple App Store, providing an interesting and Apple-approved way to watch Flash content on your iPhone. The app basically reads the web page, figures out where the Flash content is, then re-encodes it on Skyfire's cloud to view inside a pop-up in the app browser. And it's a money maker. Implications on the mobile scene? Oh yeah...

Skyfire ranks among the hottest apps in the Apple App Store, providing an interesting and Apple-approved way to watch Flash content on your iPhone. The app basically reads the web page, figures out where the Flash content is, then re-encodes it on Skyfire’s cloud to view inside a pop-up in the app browser. And it’s a money maker. Implications on the mobile scene? Oh yeah…

You can read the 300,000 sales details here, and the $1 million profit speculation here. But the bigger picture?

Skyfire costs a mere $2.99. You don’t have to do much math here. A lot of buyers means a lot of cash, even with Apple taking a 30% cut. If you have something unique in the App Store, it still has the potential to be golden. The App-Rush isn’t over yet.
Skyfire’s demand on iOS shows that Flash isn’t dead in the minds of consumers, even if it is with Steve Jobs. But what it also means is that on-the-fly Flash to HTML5 conversion is a technology that is very real and could eventually shape the web landscape further.

Skyfire is actively planning an iPad version of the browser, which may have an even more ‘integrated’ way of doing Flash to HTML5 conversion. Translation: If Skyfire can do it, Apple can certainly do it.

But will Apple make that move? As of now, many alternative browsers on the App store don’t offer anything earth shatteringly different from the stock Safari app, except for tabs and some tweaks for viewing web pages. Skyfire should look out. I believe Apple may have them in their sights for acquisition.

I can hear the tag-line already. “iOS 5.0 with Safari. Flash without the Flash.”

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