Skyfire for iPhone 'sold out' owing to huge demand

Skyfire has pulled its browser for the iPhone from Apple's online store following huge demand which dragged down performance of Skyfire's system for delivering web pages.

Skyfire for iPhone was made available on the iPhone App Store yesterday, following approval by Apple itself.

The browser hit the headlines because it provides a way of letting iPhone users access Flash-based content in web sites, unlike Apple's own Safari browser.

It does this by channelling all web requests via Skyfire's servers, which transcode Flash-based video into formats supported by the phone.

However, demand for the browser from iPhone users has been so great that Skyfire's servers were unable to keep up with demand, and the firm has temporarily stopped downloads from the App Store.

"Skyfire for iPhone has been received with unbelievable enthusiasm. Despite our best attempts and predictions, the demand far exceeds our initial projections." Skyfire said in a message on its blog.

"The user experience was performing well for the first few hours, but as the surge continued, the peak load on our servers and bandwidth caused the video experience to degrade," Skyfire explained.

All of this demonstrates the pent-up level of demand for Flash support on the iPhone, despite the dismissive attitude shown to it by Apple chief executive Steve Jobs, who has previously dubbed the technology "buggy" and a "resource hog ".

Skyfire for iPhone became the top grossing app, the third highest paid app overall and the top app in the Utilities category, all within five hours of being made available, according to Skyfire.