Adobe brings Flash to Apple iPhone

A number of Flash apps are already available on the App Store

Adobe has opened up the iPhone to Flash developers, announcing today that designers will be able to use Flash Professional CS5 and ActionScript 3 to build native applications that can be distributed and downloaded via the Apple App Store.

The firm used its Adobe Max 2009 developer conference to unveil a public beta of Flash Professional CS5, demonstrating how users can create rich and interactive applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch and port other applications built on Adobe AIR and Flash Player 10.

A number of apps are already available on the Apple App Store, according to Mark Doherty, Adobe Flash Platform evangelist.

"Enabling the Flash Platform to run on the iPhone has been a really tough task, and one that results in some limitations," he said in a blog post. "You have told us that this is a top priority for your mobile projects, so we have worked for over a year to build this solution."

Kevin Lynch, chief technology officer at Adobe, gave the impression that there is more to come, and called on Apple to open up for more Adobe platforms.

"The engineering teams at Adobe have succeeded in bringing the latest Flash technology to the iPhone, opening the way for the Flash community to deploy to the App Store," he said.

"When Apple is ready to bring the full web browsing experience to iPhone users, we will be ready to bring Flash Player to Safari."

The news follows a separate announcement yesterday from Adobe that big name vendors including Google, Motorola, Nvidia, Palm and RIM have all signed up to the firm's Open Screen Project.

The initiative aims to accelerate the deployment of Flash Player 10.1 on small mobile devices.