The Skyfire browser app has reportedly been approved by Apple and that's going to be a pretty exciting development for those of us who have had to forego watching videos from some of our favourite Flash-heavy sites like the Dailyshow, Colbert Report, Collegehumor etc.
Skyfire’s nifty work-around is to stream users’ browser requests for flash video from their servers, thus circumventing the Flash-hating iOS4. CNET has reported about how it is supposed to work: “When you get to a site that plays video, Skyfire will display the usual error message or symbol and then pop up a thumbnail with a "Play" button on it. That's what you press to launch the video playback.”
The downside is, Skyfire will only work for Flash Video. That means no Flash interactivity or Flash games (but who plays flash games nowadays anyway). And it doesn’t work with popular TV-streaming site Hulu cos they said no thanks. (But I’m not based in the US so that doesn’t bother me since Hulu isn’t offered outside the US anyway...)
Given the upside and downside, will we pay for this app at a launch price of $2.99? I predict that it will at least make Top 25. At the moment, Skyfire’s website, blog and facebook entries are all quiet about this momentous approval milestone and I can only guess that their PR guys are celebrating outside the office (guys you need to update your website!)
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