UPDATED: Sold Out! Skyfire Web Browser now available in the App Store!
The Skyfire Web Browser app is now live in the App Store a full day ahead of schedule. We're messing around with the app now, and we like what we've seen so far. (We even managed to get last Sunday's iPad live! Ustream.tv recording to play -- check out those Halloween super-suits!)
Something we've noticed is slight slowness when loading pages, and we suspect this is due to the massive influx of iOS users testing out the new app at once, since everything is routed through Skyfire's own servers. (They're transcoding Flash to iOS-friendly H.264 on the fly, then shipping that to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch -- so that's a bit of a workload!)
Any readers out there care to give their initial impressions on this flash-converting web browser?
UPDATE: Skyfire is either unavailable or becoming unavailable in many countries. Could they be trying to reduce load given initial demand has pretty much melted their transcoding servers? Either way, if you can't find it in your local App Store, or you could find it previously and now it's gone, let us know in comments.
UPDATE 2: As we suspected, demand overwhelmed their servers and now Skyfire is officially "sold out":
Thus we are effectively ‘sold out’ and will temporarily not accept new purchases from the App Store. We are working really hard to increase capacity and will be accepting new purchases from the App Store as soon as we can support it.
[iTunes]
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It's very slow.
Flash-HTML5 transcoding is working and even over 3G, but the browser itself is lacking retina display support... it could/should look better.
Doesn't work with Flash based games... Reason? 'Aren't there enough iPhone games?' Seriously?
Games will not work because the flash is converted into HTML5
I had a beta version on my treo 750 a few years ago, it worked really well on that hardware, I can't wait to try it on my iphone tonight. I can't wait to see how it's matured.
@Daniel, it won't run flash games because it's not a flash browser. It will transcode flash videos, on a server in their buidling, then beam it to your iphone in an HTML5 friendly format that will work on your iphone. The input required to play a game is just not possible with the way the technology works.
As expected, Skyfire's servers have melted under the load. Can't get a single video to play...
It's sad that it cost money, when they came out for the android marketplace last year it was free. They just know iPhone users think they need flash so they will pay for it, but you really don't need it.
I'm surviving just fine w/out flash
Worked well when I tested it out on guardian.co.uk. Disappointed to see there isn't an iPad-optimized version. Hopefully that' won't take too long to materialise.
Icon is extremely ugly, I went with this... http://bit.ly/bJ1SwA
It seems to be a standard to sell iPhone apps, give it away on android, and pay users to download to blackberry.
The only reason I might get this would be to watch streaming episodes of The Daily Show on my iPad. Before I take the plunge, can one of you guinea pigs confirm that it works for that purpose? Thanks.
SUCKS!
DO NOT BUY!!!!!
I'm so disappointed.
Servers appear to be overloaded... Vids wont load for me.
So far I am dissapointed. It's slow and does not work on many sites, specifically Canadian ones, such CTV or Space.
Let me be clear. First...Ads. I didn't just pay for an app and see some frakking ads did I?
Second, Cannot play video? are you kidding? Seriously?
A rip off if I ever saw one, and I've seen plenty.
Is it not available in Australia? For some reason I can't find it in the App Store.
One other point. Although it does have a desktop view, web pages are often still shown in mobile form. It would have been nice if the browser would identify itself as firefox or explorer like the atomic browser can.
The UI and the Flash video are a little slow on my iPhone 3G over 3G (as would be expected), but I can watch Zero Punctuation on my iPhone. Sold!
Idk what Everyones complaining about. It works great on my 3gs
On the contrary, YOUR icon is ugly!
This just proves that Flash is worthless. Everyone wants it to watch videos? Seriously? Is the iPhone the ONLY web enabled device you guys have?
VERY VERY DISAPPOINTED SO FAR !! maybe it's the usually data crush that comes with the iphone but so far click on a flash video on a desktop video starts to play in 1-2 seconds, click on a flash video on a skyfire videos starts to play in 1-2 MINUTES, IF AT ALL. hopefully this is fixed fast ! whoever thought this is the greatest browser on other platforms must have never used Safari
To hell with flash
I cast thee to the deepest darkest pits of hell.. LOL
Looks like skyfire is getting pulled from the AppStore in multiple countries. Get it while the gettins' good. http://www.razorianfly.com/2010/11/03/breaking-skyfire-removed-from-ital...
So far ts working pretty good. Just watched southpark on my iPhone 4 over 3G. Earlier it was running really slow but now seems better. At times it faster than safari when switching tabs and viewing multiple sites, but than at times it hiccups and lags. Very promising for a 1.0 product and has already replaced safari as my main browser.
Im a funky butt lover
I hear its being pulled from app stores around the globe...
Just downloaded this for my wife's ipad, but she does not know yet. LOL. But hey, now she can watch her korean dramas on her iPad. I think she will definitely think it was worth the $2.99 that i spent. I know she wasn't too pleased went i spend $2.99 on that T-Pain app.hahaha. I tested it out and seems to work pretty good. Too bad there isn't an iPad version, but the picture seems to look descent. Not too shabby...
Not available in Australia yet when you type 'skyfire' into search, 'skyfire web browser' appears as a result, you touch it and it says no matches. I hope this is temporary due to a possible overload.
It is being pulled because it sucks.
I'm going to ask for a refund.
Pulled from the Canada store. I managed to install it from the Canada store a couple hours ago, but now the app store returns "your request could not be completed" if I try to view details on "Skyfire Web Browser"
I am beyond glad I didn't pay for this app.
I tried using it earlier, then again a few minutes ago. Any website where you'd want to watch a television show or a movie tells you that you need to download Flash...
Isn't that what the browser's for?
Simply put, the app is sketchy.
@Andre Pirate.
Arggh... Just tried to download in the U.S. but its yanked
!
It went yankeinstein from the US!
Got it from Installuous. Works perfectly! Probably gonna buy it once the complaints die down and most of the alleged bugs are fixed.
Skyfire for iPhone has been received with unbelievable enthusiasm. Despite our best attempts and predictions, the demand far exceeds our initial projections.
The user experience was performing well for the first few hours, but as the surge continued, the peak load on our servers and bandwidth caused the video experience to degrade.
Thus we are effectively ‘sold out’ and will temporarily not accept new purchases from the App Store. We are working really hard to increase capacity and will be accepting new purchases from the App Store as soon as we can support it.
We are very grateful for the demand. Within 5 hours, Skyfire for iPhone became the top grossing app, the third highest paid app overall and the top application in the Utilities category. Wow!
Please bear with us as we bring our capacity in line with the incredible demand – stay tuned.
Thanks, Robert.
Found ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Here http://skyfire.com/press/blog
Glad I didn't bite that hook. $2.99 to watch flash content that has to be transcoded first. Give me a break.
The browser works great and shows the majority of flash video. When the surge of downloads happen it started acting funny. I am sure when they get it back up they will have an update and things will work like it did this morning. I went to abc.com and vh1.com and bet.com and was able to watch the episodes on there with no problem still can.
can someone return theirs so i can buy it? k thanks :]
I was lucky enough to get in right when i saw it announced on twitter .
Glad I got it this morning. Oh, FYI when you go to a site with flash video it still says you need a flash plug-in, but on the bottom next to the multiple browser tab button is a video button that will play the flash video on that site for anyone that's confused about that.
I passed. Do people really need the mindless junk that's still in Flash? Any video that's halfway intelligent is already available in iOS format.
It's gone, here in Mexico store if you search for it is listed, but when clicked it says it can't be found, disappointing
These guys are going to become millionaires over night...
" it's still available "
Hint hint...... Lets see if this gets posted.. Workes good just browsing, how to sites like tipb, news. Etc. All theses retards are going wack happy I'm sure.. It'll cool down.
NO! I dIDNT GET IT! :@
Now i get to watch porn in flash format and spank my little cock
Who needs flash anyway
Got my copy as soon as I saw it posted as available by twitter (I think BGR posted it before Tipb). Glad I did. I figured it would either get pulled, increase in price or something like this would happen.
Yea it's sold out I missed my chance :(
I got it, works good, takes about 1 min for the video to convert/load.
Try watching something on ctv.ca... It doesn't work, says you need a flash update. And that icon you speak of doesn't work.
Nothing like being a victim of your own success....
I was able to get it for my iPhone 4 but it had sold out before I was able to get it on my iPad.
Now all I'm waiting for is iOS 4.2 for my iPad!
Patience my friends, patience. I'm waiting until a month later when hopefully there is a bug fix and a server fix.
Want ask about the heat degree (52^) on the upper right corner of the screen !! what is that ??
not the I don't love the new browser .. but why they took it out of the app store ??
Does anyone know, if it is it designed to work for streaming audio from radio web sites?
It's funny how everyone dogs on flash but there's obviously a huge demand for it. Hope Apple will come to there senses and do flash better on safari. It's not like they coudn't do it. This should be a big sign to Apple.
I can play flash just fine with my non-updated cloud browser I downloaded months ago for free...
Sooo... I guess Jobs was right. The world doesn't want a browser to be able to view flash content. This is probably just a marketing gimmick!
Well Thanx a lot, if I wouldve known that it was gonna be available on Wednesday instead of Thursday I probably wouldve had it..
I managed to get a copy, but still can't watch ESPN3 from my iPhone...
We paid for it and it worked a couple of times but now it doesn't.This is a rip off a lot of Canadians bought it .We were ripped off .It figures that it only works in the United States.Don't offer it for sale if it doesn't work!
Skyfire sucks,it used to be cool when I had it on awindows phone and it played video on the webpage,now it has the stupid video toolbar. I downloaded it then deleted it off my android phone. Blackberry browser is far better,skyfire can shove there browser up there ass.
How can I see my Son's and Daughter's passwords that they use to log into FB, Gmail etc. Want to make sure they are not doing anything wrong before i go and buy them a computer of their own? They have been using my computer when they do log in,Thank You