At its MAX developer conference, Adobe has announced that it will offer an iPhone and iPod touch application export option in Adobe Flash Professional CS5. The feature will allow Flash developers to use the same source code used to deliver applications on the Adobe AIR and Flash Player 10 platforms to create native iPhone applications which can be submitted to Apple and sold via the App Store. On its preview page, Adobe explains that applications created using Flash are compiled into standard, native iPhone executable packages which do not require a runtime interpreter and therefore do not run afoul of Apple’s iPhone development guidelines.
The company has also taken the time to explain that the new feature will not allow Flash-based web content on the phone. A passage on the preview page states, “Flash Player uses a just-in-time compiler and virtual machine within a browser plug-in to play back content on websites. Those technologies are not allowed on the iPhone at this time, so a Flash Player for iPhone is not being made available today.” Adobe Flash Professional CS5 is slated for release later this year.
