Today at the Adobe Max 2009 developer conference, Adobe unveiled Flash Professional CS5, which includes support for creating stand-alone apps for Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone and iPod Touch.
The next version of Flash Authoring will enable developers to create stand-alone iPhone applications using Flash technologies, including ActionScript 3. These applications are just like any other iPhone application and can be distributed through the Apple App Store.
Adobe today at the show demonstrated several such apps created with Flash that are already available at the store.
“One thing I want to stress is that this is for stand-alone applications, and is not the Flash Player for mobile Safari (which is something we continue to work on). The end result is a native iPhone application, and not a SWF that runs in the browser. There is no requirement for the Flash Player/Adobe AIR Runtime to be installed on the device or included in the application. The end result is a native iPhone application,” writes Mike Chambers, of Adobe’s developer relations division, in a blog post.
Currently, the project is in private beta, and Adobe plans to release a public beta of Flash CS5 with support for building iPhone applications before the end of this year.
The development of the iPhone workaround comes on the heels of Adobe’s news earlier today that Flash 10.1 will fully support the other key players in mobile — Research In Motion’s (NASDAQ: RIMM) BlackBerry devices, Google’s (NASDAQ: GOOG) Android-powered handsets, Palm (NASDAQ: PALM) webOS devices, Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) Windows Mobile and Nokia’s (NYSE: NOK) Symbian powered phones.
Adobe also showcased a series of new iPhone applications built using a beta version of Flash Professional CS5. Developers that created iPhone applications with the beta include BlueSkyNorth, Bowler Hat Games, Breakdesign, FlashGameLicense, Muchosmedia, PushButton Labs and South Park Digital Studios.
A number of additional applications are also being submitted to the App Store including an iPhone application for Adobe’s Web conferencing solution, Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro. Several of these new applications are currently available for iPhone users to download within the Apple App Store, according to Adobe.