MacRumors and Business Week recently reported that Apple may be working closely with some third party developers in the creation of games for the iPhone. Games for the iPod (aside from the rudimentary games that have shipped with the iPod for years) have been available for $4.99 on the iTunes Store since the release of iTunes 7 in September of 2006. There has been much talk and speculation about the development of third-party applications for the iPhone. Thus far, it seems that Apple is keeping the iPhone closed to external software due to potential problems that could arise from poorly-written code that could adversely affect the performance of the iPhone. However, if these reports are accurate, Apple may be allowing for supervised development of applications that will run on the iPhone. I’ll leave out all the politics and economics, and get on to the real subject here: Games for the iPhone.

Of course the iPhone is not meant to be a gaming device, but as for casual gaming, I’m sure it has ample processing power to deliver some good time-wasting functionality. So don’t worry, once you’ve finished with the multitude of productive things you could be doing with your iPhone, listened to and watched all your Podcasts, caught up on any network TV shows/movies you’ve downloaded from the iTunes store, reminisced a bit over some old pictures, taken some new ones, and it’s still a while before your next event on iCal, iPhone will still have you covered (sorry, no promises on battery life). So, what will these games look like? Well, since Steve Jobs won’t be letting us in on that for a few long months, let’s see where we stand… a single button, a (multi-touch capable) touch screen, and an accelerometer. Sound familiar? Didn’t think so… Well, I think it will be exciting to see what they come up with.

As far as the accelerometer is concerned, conceptual games (1, 2) have already been created for Mac laptops with built-in accelerometers, so we know that there is some kind of plausibility to its implementation as an input device for gaming on OSX. While I am somewhat doubtful that this will come into play initially, it is definitely worth mentioning. I think some pretty cool options arise if it is actually implemented in games. But many questions and significant challenges remain, here are just a few: is the processor powerful enough to handle the demands placed on it by that kind of game? How accurately/quickly does it sense direction? Will it detect turns in all 360º? How would this kind of game be implemented? My guess is that we will probably be dealing with just the touch screen and single button for now.

I’m sure a more traditional style of gaming could be implemented through the use of virtual buttons on the screen, or currently available iPod games could be modified and played on the iPhone with a virtual click wheel. But both of these options compromise the playability of the games because there is no tactile feedback. Apple would rather release nothing than a product that isn’t ready, and they won’t release a product that compromises functionality either, so I think we will see something new and made specifically for the iPhone if we see anything at all. Remember, Apple has seen only modest success with iPod games. They are in no hurry to release games for the iPhone, and I’m sure they have more than enough to do before its release as it is. No one is going to base their decision to buy an iPhone on its performance as a mobile gaming device, and I don’t think anyone really cares anyway, but I think there is some cool potential available here, so we will see what happens. Do you have any ideas for games for the iPhone? Let me know!