Adobe to bring Flash to iPhone despite Steve Jobs

Despite a heated exchange with Apple, Adobe seems to be pressing forward with plans to bring Flash to the iPhone.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs started the battle in the media with comments to investors at a shareholders' meeting earlier this month. Essentially, his position was that the current version of Flash for mobile phones is not good enough for the device, and the standard version runs too slowly.

In response, Adobe shot back that the iPhone was crippled without support for the increasingly pervasive multimedia Web format. It also argued that Apple had virtually left it in the dark about how exactly the two companies could work together to make Flash a reality.

Some industry insiders pointed out that without Apple's help, building Flash for the iPhone and iPod Touch will be a laborious task.

Essentially, the technology needs to be rebuilt from the ground up to take into consideration the differences between Flash in a desktop environment and in the quasi-mobile OS that Apple uses -- especially with gestures as the method of navigation on the device.

That doesn't seem to be stopping Adobe. Developers at the company have gotten a copy of the iPhone SDK and say that after looking through it, it should be possible for a Flash player to be built and then offered through the App Store system that will house iPhone applications.

Even without the iPhone, Flash Lite, the current system to bring the technology to mobile phones is doing quite well. Adobe reported that 100 million Flash Light-equipped phones shipped in the company's first quarter.

It also received additional support from Microsoft, which agreed to include the technology in Windows Mobile.