Flash May Come to iPod, iPhone and iPad, But Not From Adobe.

Posted on May 8th, 2010. Written by Arron.

After Steve Jobs made his stance on Flash running on his beloved army of iPhone OS devices crystal clear last month, in way of an open letter, US firm RipCode (@Transcode_Video) may just come to the rescue.

The software, which first hit the mainstream in mid-April, is capable of automatically re-wrapping movies in an iPhone OS-friendly format. The firm claims its “TransAct” Transcoder can convert Flash files or live video streams without any impact on the end user, and without any additional software required on the iPad.

All the re-encoding is apparently done on-the-fly on their web server, automatically detecting content request from an iPhone OS device and converting the content to either an MP4 progressive download or Mpeg-TS adaptive progressive download.

““The ‘Flash on iPad’ dilemma is really just the latest in a long line of speed bumps on the road towards “any-content, any-time, any-place, any-device” that we all desire,” says Brendon Mills, CEO of RipCode. “Fortunately, our technology removes this barrier in a way that is attractive to content hosters, a key device manufacturer, a key video player provider, and the end user alike.”

While RipCode’s method isn’t a full solution to the lack of flash on these devices, and would require sites switching to RipCode’s own technology to make this a viable option, it is a possible solution to websites not able to show their Flash-powered videos. That said, it would also mean Apple pulling a blind eye to the “hack”, and with the recent announcement of Gianduia, Apple’s own client-side, standards based framework for Rich Internet Apps, we can’t see that happening anytime soon.

[via @AppleTasty]