Even though Apple still refuses to allow Flash on the iOS platform, there is now a way to play at least some popular Flash-based games on the iPad. On September 25th , Apple just approved iSwifter (iTunes link), a free app that bypasses Apple’s Flash embargo by simply streaming the games to your iPad, similar to what OnLive does with PC games. Games run on a central server and the iPad app basically works like a remote desktop client and relays the user’s input back to the server.

Before you get too excited, it’s important to note that the app currently only features a very limited set of games from Yahoo! Games, AOL Games.com, Facebook and Kongregate. The team plans to add more games over time, though, and announce more partnerships with other Flash-gaming portals, too.

The iSwifter app is kind of like a portal. You download it to your iPad and then it gives you access to a number of games stored on its servers. Those games are typically played with a mouse and keyboard on the web. But iSwifter has selected a number of games that will work with the iPad’s touchscreen interface. ISwifter programming is designed wonderfully, you can hardly find games running on the ipad. Now iSwifter only support iPad, and can only be used by WiFi. After the Flash Games being transferred to iPad, you can also transfer the games from ipad to computer through a ipad to computer transfer software.

The service is a great way to get around walled gardens. If companies such as Apple allow the app, then the app can bring content that might otherwise not run — or be allowed to run — on the particular platform. By making their games available on iSwifter, game developers can avoid being locked out of certain platforms. And the developers do not have to adapt their games, change them from one format to another, just to expand their reach to new platforms. iSwifter is using cloud computing to stream various Flash portals, such as Kongregate, Yahoo! Games, and AOL Games, to your iDevice, unaltered.

“iSwifter represents a game-changer for smaller Flash game developers that don’t have the resources to port their games to multiple mobile platforms like iOS and Android,” says Net Jacobsson, a former Facebook executive, advisor to King.com, and founder & CEO of Playhopper, a Flash-based social gaming start-up.

If everything works out for streaming services like iSwifter, gamers could enter a sort of renaissance of free gaming options. I’m not exactly sure how the online services will work within things like, say, Yahoo! Games, but I would be pretty happy to play Yahoo! Pool in some of my downtime. Sure, Flash games can be silly, but there are a ton of them out there, and many of them are far better than some of the free offerings in the App Store.

By now, iSwifter is only available for the iPad and only works over WiFi networks. The company plans to add support for 3G networks soon and launch iPhone and Android apps in the near future.

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