iPhone Flash converter melts down

 

Top grossing app.

The makers of Skyfire, an iOS app which renders Flash video into iPhone- and iPad-ready HTML5 format, halted sales just five hours after Thursday's launch.

"The user experience was performing well for the first few hours, but as the surge continued, the peak load on our servers and bandwidth caused the video experience to degrade," explained Skyfire's Robert Oberhofer.

The app promised to solve a frustrating problem for Apple's mobile device customers with Skyfire's app presenting a "kosher" workaround to Apple boss Steve Jobs' ban on Adobe Flash format video.

Skyfire has circumvented the Flash ban by taking the file and rendering it into HTML 5 format on its servers.

According to Oberhofer Skyfire for the iPhone became the top grossing app, outselling the wildly popular Angry Birds game.

The app will be sold again once Skyfire boosts its server and bandwidth capacity, he said.

The free app, Flipboard, which renders social media streams into a magazine format, experienced similar problems when thousands of people rushed to log-in to third-party sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

Within 24 hours Flipboard's makers updated the software, adding a queueing system that controlled the inflow of users attempting to log-in.

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iPhone Flash converter melts down
"Flash is a major pain. Look at how slow some major browsers are when trying to use it. IE slows to a crawl as does Opera. Firefox isn't too bad with Google Chrome not far behind. Try running a ..."
By scooter
 
 
 
Comments: 6
Thysce
Nov 5, 2010 9:27 AM
All the rave about this new browser app, yet it isn't even in the AU store...
Johnny
Nov 5, 2010 9:42 AM
+1 thysce, it's annoying how we always have to wait so long. However if they released worldwide their servers would have crashed within minutes.

however i'd much prefer to have the ability to use my own computer for the rendering then over wifi have it stream to my device rather than rely on these people.
grumpybug
Nov 5, 2010 10:26 AM
Of course it is interesting isn't it. Steve Jobs is being bloody minded about not having flash on IOS but this application and how the service melted down clearly shows that this is what the customer wants.

Now isn't there an old saying about the customer is always right? I wonder if Apple are going to look at this and actually give the customer what they want. I very much doubt it but you can always live in hope or migrate to a platform that will.
Bob
Nov 5, 2010 1:31 PM
I think that the fact that the servers crashed trying to render the Flash says Jobs is right. 250,000 apps out there don't seem to need flash so why degrade the system.

Almost daily there are security patches that you need to load for the thing. I had a Flash website and I took most of it out and that removed most of my errors.
realitybites
Nov 5, 2010 2:23 PM
I tend to agree with Bob on this, flash needs to be made redundant.
scooter
Nov 8, 2010 11:31 AM
Flash is a major pain. Look at how slow some major browsers are when trying to use it. IE slows to a crawl as does Opera. Firefox isn't too bad with Google Chrome not far behind. Try running a couple of browsers together and the computer needs to be restarted to sort out the mess.
I hate myself ... really really hate myself for this but I have to agree with Jobs. When they sort out the dodgey code and make it a stable multi-tasking capable platform then I might reconsider. Too bad I'm a Facebook app addict otherwise I'd avoid flash sites. :)
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