Flash Professional CS5 = Native iPhone Programming?

Written by Michael Swengel on October 23, 2009

The iPhone OS and the App Store have been an excellent platform for programmers of all sizes to design and code applications for delivery to customers.

Unfortunately, writing applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch requires a working knowledge of Apple’s developer tools and the Objective-C programming language.

The Objective-C programming language is the foundation of Apple’s Mac OS X and the iPhone OS. Objective-C is also used in MS Windows and Linux – but on a lesser level.

Developers may soon have an alternative, however.

Adobe’s Flash platform has long been used to create rich media content for the web and mobile devices.

Unfortunately, the iPhone has simply not yet adopted the Flash player due to Apple’s restrictions. But what if Flash content could be compiled into native iPhone applications? What if all the games and interactive content made possible by Flash could be brought to the iPhone?

The coming version of Flash Professional, CS5 is poised to change the world of programming for mobile devices. Flash Professional CS5 will enable developers to build interactive, rich media applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The best part: these applications can be sold in the App Store just as those developed using Xcode and Objective-C.

When a project is compiled for the iPhone, Flash Pro CS5 will convert all button behaviors, etc into native Objective-C code that the iPhone can understand.

So who does this benefit? Think about it. Someone may be great at Flash design and programming but not skilled with Objective-C and Xcode. Adobe’s new entry into the market will bring iDevice programming to design-oriented customers while the market has been largely dominated by code-oriented people.

Now, this doesn’t mean the Flash player is coming to the iDevices – not yet anyway.