Skyfire, the app that lets iPhone users watch Flash videos, proved so popular when it launched on Thursday that the developers had to pull it from the store after only five hours. The company pulled Skyfire because their Flash to HTML5 conversion servers were overwhelmed with the volume from users that had just downloaded the app.
“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,” the company said.
Skyfire for the iPhone
Skyfire lets iPhone users view Flash video by intercepting the Flash content they want to watch, re-encoding it for HTML5, then sending it on to the viewer. Once the Skyfire Labs servers couldn’t keep up with user demand, the company pulled their app from Apple’s App Store.
For users that didn’t get a chance to download Skyfire before it was pulled, you’ll get your chance later. “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,” the company said.
Skyfire is priced at US$2.99 and will eventually be available at the App Store again.