Skyfire browser for iPhone returns to the App Store 'in batches'

Skyfire, the mobile Web browser that has made a sensation on all the mobile platforms it's launched upon, will be available again in the iOS App Store after "selling out" five hours after it was made available.

Skyfire has been available for more than two years on Symbian S60, Windows Mobile, and Android, and on all platforms it has been heralded as a triumph. Thanks to server-side rendering, recompression, and transcoding of Web content, Skyfire is able to bring content to mobile devices without the need for certain codecs (such as Flash and Silverlight) on the user's phone.

On November third, Skyfire for iOS launched in the App Store for $3.99.

But due to extremely high demand for the app, it was pulled down from the app store after only five hours.

"Despite our best attempts and predictions, the demand far exceeds our initial projections," Skyfire's Robert Oberhofer said. "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."

Today, Skyfire CEO Jeff Glueck said Skyfire will be available "in batches" for new users over the next few days. It will go up, users will be able to download it, then it will go down again.

"We are taking this approach because Skyfire believes a good user experience should come first, and we would rather have fewer, happier customers, and add new users as we can support them," Glueck said. "We will open the first batches to US users only, with additional country support to follow shortly."

If you are interested in downloading Skyfire for iOS and it is not showing up as "available" in the App Store, Glueck suggests trying again at hourly intervals.