The Skyfire iPhone browser has only been available in eight countries before today but the company announced that it will be bringing its Adobe Flash-enabled browser to the Apple App Stores in France, Germany and Italy.
As you should know by now, the biggest appeal of the Skyfire iPhone browser is the ability to play Adobe Flash videos. It’s not going to work in-line like Flash on Android but the browser uses compression technology to deliver those videos to iPhone users.
The browser hit the Apple App Store in early November and it promptly “sold out” – the amount of demand overwhelmed the company’s servers and it had to pull it for a brief period to ensure a good user experience.
When you go to a page with a Flash video, you simply hit a button on the bottom row of the Skyfire browser and the video plays a few seconds later. Along with the Flash-playing abilities, it also has some social networking integration, as well as integrated search.
“We are excited to launch in Italy, and expect to remain available uninterrupted in supported countries. We will continue to roll out in additional countries around the world over the coming weeks,” explains Jeff Glueck, CEO of Skyfire, in a prepared statement. “International users have always been at the core of Skyfire’s success and we are working to bring the best possible browsing experience to the best handsets around the world.”
The European version is about the same price as the U.S. version ($2.99) and this browser has already been downloaded more than 300,000 people.
In an interesting note, the company also said that it will be working on a version of its app for the Apple iPad. There was no time line for this release but I can’t wait to get some Flash video on my big-screen tablet.