Carmack confirms id push towards iPhone and iTunes

id code legend John Carmack has been quick to confirm the developer has already applied to work on iPhone games after last night's first showing of Spore and Monkey Ball running on the handheld, and has warned that iTunes may be a fearsome delivery device in determining who wins out in the mobile gaming sector.

"[id] have put in our application like everyone else, so I don't have any inside information at this point," he said. "I think Steve [Jobs] is still p**sed at me over some negative comments I made about iPod development tools a while ago. Just based on the blurbs, it looks very good - a simulator plus debugging on the native device is the best of both worlds, and a 70 percent royalty deal for apps over iTunes is quite good.

"The iTunes distribution channel is really a more important aspect than a lot of people understand. The ability to distribute larger applications than the over-the-air limits and effectively market your title with more than a dozen character deck name, combined with the reasonable income split make this look like a very interesting market. This type of developer-customer interaction is probably the wave of the future for mobile devices. It will be interesting to see how quickly the other players can react. Based on our experiences with the carriers, I am betting not very quickly."

iPhone and iTunes could be the real break mobile gaming's been waiting for. Good. Gives us an excuse to get one.