The iPhone has been one of Apple’s biggest successes but it’s not exactly the apple of online poker players’ eyes. The iPhone does many things amazingly well, but online poker games aren’t one of them, as Apple’s decision to not support Flash and its stringent approval process for any iPhone app have left online poker fans out in the cold.
The primary roadblock to enjoying real money poker on your iPhone is Apple’s reluctance to approve any app that can be used for online gambling for real money. For better or for worse, the legal landscape is still unclear in many countries when it comes to online gambling, and Apple has decided to steer clear of the issue entirely by not approving the vast majority of online gambling apps. If left to the best poker sites, they’d have had online poker apps for the iPhone available the day it was released, but unfortunately for online poker fans, that decision is still in Apple’s hands.
While some online poker sites do offer no-download Flash poker clients (but not the majority of sites, due to security risks), that option is ruled out as well, due to Apple’s decision to not support Flash on the iPhone. Apple shows no signs in changing its stance on Flash support for either the iPhone or the iPad, so poker fans shouldn’t pin their hopes on being able to play poker on their iPhones using no-download Flash clients.
The only real way that poker players have found to use their iPhone to lay poker online is by tapping into remote desktop programs or services, see more about that here, whether they be native support in the OS or third-party remote desktop services. Playing online poker via remote desktop is fairly simple, as you basically use your iPhone to access and use applications you’ve installed on your desktop.
With some fiddling and tweaking of settings, this can get you up and running with most online poker sites, but be prepared to deal with significant lag at times and only being able to play a few tables at a time. It’s far from a perfect solution but it will at least give you a way to play online poker from your iPhone.