SkyFire browser pulls in $1M, proves iPhone users really want Flash video

November 10, 2010 3:20 PM
Devindra Hardawar
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MobileBeat 2013
July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA
Early Bird Tickets on Sale

The mobile SkyFire browser for the iPhone sells itself: It lets you play Flash video on the iPhone. Who wouldn’t want that? So it’s no surprise to learn that the browser has already raked in $1 million since it hit the App Store last Thursday, TechCrunch reports.

The browser sells for $2.99, and the company says that its download numbers were over 300,000 for the weekend. After Apple’s 30 percent cut of the pie, that leaves SkyFire with over $700,000. The browser is also available for Android, Windows Mobile, and Nokia phones — and notably, it’s free on those platforms.

SkyFire’s journey to success on the iPhone has been a storied one. The company submitted the app for Apple’s approval in early September, and at the time we argued that Apple would have very little reason not to accept the browser. SkyFire announced the app was approved earlier this month and that it would be hitting the App Store on Thursday, November 4. But due to popular demand, SkyFire pulled the app after its servers — which encode the Flash video into an iPhone-ready format — got overwhelmed. The company proceeded to accept purchases in batches as it strengthened its servers for the onslaught of iPhone users.

While SkyFire’s technology lets iPhone users view most Flash video on the web, it doesn’t offer access to other Flash elements like games or animations. Hulu is also blocking the app from converting its Flash videos — so iPhone users remain stuck with Hulu’s official app. It’ll be interesting to see how long SkyFire’s sales remain strong, as it’s an accurate depiction of how many users are fed up with Apple’s anti-Flash policy.

  • http://www.google.com/profiles/zediation Michael Elliot

    If only there was a way to get Flash officially supported on iOS and for Steve Jobs to save face at the same time.

  • http://www.newser.com/user/52007115/1/chas-m.html chas_m

    It's not actually an “accurate depiction” of the iPhone audience's appetite for Flash — its strong current sales could just as easily be argued as being a cheap novelty to see how Flash performs on the iPhone. Most will see that the answer is “not that great,” and go back to what they were doing, however grateful they may be that if they find they NEED a Flash video for whatever reason, they now at least have that OPTION.Let's take a look at Skyfire's sales in three months. THEN we'll be able to speculate more intelligently about what its *continued* success says about Flash demand.

  • http://www.newser.com/user/52007115/1/chas-m.html chas_m

    Oh, that's easy, actually — no face-saving necessary.Steve himself said in his open letter on Flash that all Adobe has to do is freaking FIX IT, by which I mean create a version that's not a resource, battery or memory hog. If Adobe gets Flash to be lean and mean, Apple has already said on the record they'd welcome its inclusion.The ball is quite firmly in Adobe's court on this.

  • http://www.bigjobsboard.com Steve Jobs

    If that numbers does not wake Apple and accept the fact that Flash is still the king, then they are timid and waging a war with flash is unfruitful at the moment till HTML 5 gains ground. They should open up to flash as lots of websites are still using it. It may take two years before flash will be out.

  • http://twitter.com/ross_ritchey Ross Ritchey

    Too late – Adobe did all of those things, and was almost finished with them when Steve wrote that open letter.Oh wait – Steve has said that NO PLUGINS will EVER be on the iOS. This is more than just Flash…

  • http://twitter.com/HolgerD77 HolgerD77

    No, it doesn't prove that iPhone users want Flash video. It just proves that iPhone users want (the) video (which is out there). So the success of Skyfire should rather be an indicator for video content providers to provide an alternative way for smartphone users (not just iPhone/iPad owners) to watch their content.

  • http://www.devindra.org Devindra Hardawar

    Yah I can't imagine that Jobs would actually backtrack on Flash support after fighting against it for so long. Even if Adobe somehow magically makes Flash less of a resource hog (it hasn't done this completely yet), Apple may find it more useful to continue the ban and push HTML5 initiatives.

  • http://www.devindra.org Devindra Hardawar

    Sure you could read it that way as well. I guess we'll see what happens first. Not all of these sites can manage to push out HTML5 video offerings easily.

  • http://venturebeat.com/2012/01/25/skyfire-8m-funding/ Skyfire gets $8M to stream your mobile videos faster | VentureBeat

    [...] provide Flash support for its mobile devices, many people flocked to Skyfire’s browser apps to watch in-browser Flash videos on their iPhones and [...]

  • http://usedguitarsonl.shikshik.org/2012/09/02/skyfire-like/ Skyfire like | Usedguitarsonl

    [...] SkyFire browser pulls in $1M, proves iPhone users really want Flash …Nov 10, 2010 … The mobile SkyFire browser for the iPhone sells itself: It lets you play Flash video on the iPhone. Who wouldn’t want that? So it’s no surprise to … [...]

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