Despite Apple's recent relaxing of its developer agreement for iOS, no one is likely to forget Steve Jobs' damning assessment of Flash in a hurry.

Slow, archaic and apparently littered with bugs, Jobs said the implementation of Flash on iOS would be to the detriment of consumers in the long run.

The launch of iSwifter on iPad by incubator outfit YouWeb, therefore, appears shrewd, with the platform streaming Flash titles to iOS devices via the cloud.

It's a set up its founders believe bypasses any supposed technical difficulties associated with Flash.

"We are targeting the much larger user base of casual and social gamers who want to consume gaming content on-the-go," said iSwifter creator Rajat Gupta

"As more mobile devices hit the market, there is no reason why game developers should be locked out of the hottest handsets."

A force for Flash?

YouWeb certainly has previous ambitions in this area, having been the incubator behind the launches of OpenFeint, social gaming platform CrowdStar and cross platformer engine  provide Sibblingz, but commentators are already reporting that iSwifter is far from a smooth experience.

The network, which almost acts effective like a browser, tapping into Facebook, Kongregate, Bing, King.com, Yahoo! and AOL Games, is hardly awash with titles now, with four at launch.  

Some users have also reported the performance is somewhat stuttering - ironic given Jobs' take on Flash.

Nevertheless, YouWeb believes iSwifter represents a major opportunity, with its founder Peter Relan stating that cloud based platforms are the logical next step.

"With a proliferation of devices like smartphones and tablets, and 4G network connectivity around the corner, mobile represents an increasingly attractive and high-growth distribution platform for gaming content," said Relan.

Format expansion is planned in the near future, with an iPhone app already confirmed, and Android and Windows Phone 7 versions likely if the market demands.