Skyfire, a web browser app that can be used to view Flash video, had been approved by Apple and is expected to be available for download on Thursday. Skyfire will allow users to view Flash videos from the web by using intermediate proxy servers to transcode them to an iOS-friendly HTML5 and MPEG-4/H.264 standard before streaming them to the user’s device. When using Skyfire to browse to a web site containing Flash video, a thumbnail will be displayed that the user can tap on to stream the video content to their device from Skyfire’s servers. The report notes that Skyfire will be designed to translate only video content and can’t be used to translate games or other non-video Flash content. Adobe estimates that nearly 75% of online video is encoded in Flash, however other studies have noted that many of these sites encode videos in other formats in addition to Flash to provide compatibility with a broader range of devices. However, Skyfire’s CEO estimates that Skyfire will provide access to millions of web sites that were previously unavailable to iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users. CNNMoney also notes however that one major Flash-based service, Hulu, will not be available as the company has blocked the Skyfire service from being able to download its videos. It is unclear whether other similar streaming services may also follow suit.
Update (11/03/2010): Skyfire is now available from the App Store—a day earlier than expected.
Update (11/04/2010): Skyfire has been temporarily removed from the App Store by the developer due to excessive demand and server performance problems.