To be honest, we'd assumed that Adobe had simply given up on the prospect of bringing its Flash platform (which it claims powers over 70 per cent of the web's videos and interactive media content) to the iPhone.

Apple, it seems, doesn't relish the prospect of iPhone users getting free, web-based Flash games and applications, when they should be buying them from the App Store.

But Adobe apparently hasn't given up. Not entirely, anyway. It's apparently beta testing a new system that makes it simple for developer to directly port Flash games and applications to iPhone compatible ones.

Previously a developer had to start from scratch when bringing a Flash game to the iPhone, and while this new system isn't the browser plug-in that will run Flash code natively (that Adobe, and everyone in the world except for the upper echelons at Apple) actually want.

"The difference, of course, is that in those environments [smartphones that support Flash 10.1] you’d be playing [the Flash game] inside the browser" Adobe's Adrian Ludwig explains to VentureBeat.

"In [the iPhone], it’s not a browser-based application. On the iPhone, we don’t have a browser plug-in. Flash Player 10.1 isn’t available, and you can’t browse to this application and just start using it. So what developers have to do is go inside of FlashPro and export that project to a native application for the iPhone."

So, no Flash for iPhone (probably ever), but at least Adobe has stepped up to make it easier for developers to port their web games and apps, and that could still open a significant floodgate for some excellent iPhone content.