Apple's Flash Turnaround 'Great News' For Developers: Adobe

And no one is happier about the change than Flash-maker Adobe itself.

"Apple's announcement today that it has lifted restrictions on its third-party developer guidelines has direct implications for Adobe's Packager for iPhone, a feature in the Flash Professional CS5 authoring tool," Adobe wrote in a blog post.

The Packager for iPhone feature was created to let Flash developers build and deliver applications on devices running Apple's iOS operating system. Adobe said now that Apple has relaxed some of its restrictions, Adobe Packager for iPhone is available for developers to use in Flash Professional CS5; Adobe will rekindle development of Packager for future releases as well.

"This is great news for developers and we're hearing from our developer community that Packager apps are already being approved for the App Store," Adobe wrote in the blog post. "We do want to point out that Apple's restriction on Flash content running in the browser on iOS devices remains in place."

Packager apps began popping up shortly after Apple announced that it was relaxing some of the rules and regulations of its App Developer Program. Apple also published App Store Review Guidelines, which the company said will help iPhone and iPad developers understand how Apple reviews submitted applications and create more transparency in the application development, review and approval or rejection processes.

Adobe had originally scrapped Packager for iPhone after Apple created regulations in April that barred developers from using Adobe tools to build iPhone and iPad apps. But Apple's revision of its application developer agreement now lets iOS developers use cross-platform tools to create applications for iOS. Cross-platform tools, like Flash, lets developers create applications once and tailor them to run across various mobile operating systems, like Google Android and Apple's iOS.

Adobe however, was quick to point out that while iPhone app developers may now work in Flash, that does not mean that Flash video is available to view on Apple devices.

"We do want to point out that Apple's restriction of Flash content running in the browser on iOS remains in place," Adobe wrote.