Flash on the iPhone? Not just yet.

Last October was an exciting time in the land of web design. At Adobe MAX held in Los Angles, an adobe spokesman proclaimed that flash was ready for the iPhone. The newest version of flash (CS5) would allow would-be developers to export apps into native Cocoa/Objective-C-code. This really was exciting, designers and developers could now build iphone/iPad apps with the familiar flash tools that they’d being using for years, now they would be able to publish to a platform (and a huge marketplace) that had been steadfastly non supportive of the flash player.

Fast forward a couple of months and now Adobe have announced that it will be ceasing all further investment in there iPhone packager software. The reason? A new rule in the iPhone developer agreement which requires that all iPhone and iPad apps must be coded with Apple-approved programming languages e.g. C++ , this effectively prohibits any third party tool (including Silverlight, C# and .NET) being used in the app development process, rendering adobes new packaging software useless.  Adobe will still launch CS5 with the packager as rumours abound that there will be legal action between the two giants.

It would seem that Apple is keen to move away completely from the flash platform, promoting html 5 with javascript in its stead. This has caused a huge amount of debate on whether it’s just another case of Apple restricting choice for developers and end-users with their own proprietary tools or as supports point out, a case of looking for valid alternatives to a “buggy” and ubiquitous platform.

Either way it’s going to be interesting to see how this all pans out. As a designer I’m somewhat biased in the favour of Abobe on this one, allowing developers to code on platforms that they are more familiar with (including .NET/ sliverlight) would in my opinion only serve to add value and choice to what is  a somewhat stagnant app market.