Apple has made it abundantly clear the company doesn’t want Adobe Flash touching the iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad with a 327 foot pole. Instead the company has been pushing developers to write apps and web pages using HTML5 and other technologies to provide streaming video and interactive elements on Apple’s mobile devices. And by and large it seems to be working, with a number of major TV networks, for instance, launching iPad friendly video streaming apps.

But Adobe thought it found a way around this restriction. Flash CS5 included tools that would let developers write applications in Flash, and export them to an iPhone-friendly format. In other words, you write you app once, and not only is it available in Flash, but you hit the export button and it’s available as an iPhone app which you can submit to the App Store.

Unfortunately, Apple is now starting to ban all apps that were initially coded using an unsupported language from the App Store — which means that Flash-to-iPhone converter is pretty much useless.

And now Adobe has decided to give up on the idea. Adobe’s Mike Chambers says that while the converter will still be available in Flash CS5, the company will not spend any time updating it or supporting it in the future. He also suggests that Flash developers focus their efforts on other platforms including Google Android.

Chambers also takes a few swipes at Apple, suggesting that Apple’s message to developers is that even apps that have already been accepted into the App Store can be rejected at any time for any reason, and that Adobe has already demonstrated with Flash CS5 that the iPhone is perfectly capable of running Flash and Flash-based apps.

via CNET

Brad Linder

Brad Linder is editor of Liliputing and Mobiputing. He's been tinkering with mobile tech for decades and writing about it since...

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