Continuing our series of interviews about Apple's just announced iPhone 4.0 OS, we caught up with Ken Carpenter of Mind Juice Media (and the FreeAppCalendar), to get his take on how Apple had shaken up the environment for indie developers.

Pocket Gamer: What's your reaction to the iPhone 4.0 SDK announcement?

Ken Carpenter: IPhone OS 4.0 provides a lot of new functionality - 1,500 new APIs. Every time Apple releases new functionality, it provides developers with a new opportunity to be first and best with new apps that take advantage of it. It's like a mini-goldrush.

I'm very excited to take a look at the new SDK in more detail over the next couple of days.

How will Game Center change things?

Someone has to say it, but Game Center is game changing.

Many developers believe that this sort of system should have been around from the start, and players have been wishing for it ever since OpenFeint got its first competitor. It remains to be seen whether existing social networks like Open Feint, Agon, and Plus+ can adapt and survive.

However, these other services do provide more functionality than has been specifically mentioned by Apple so far, so it's not a foregone conclusion they will simply die off. It may be viable for them to adopt the core functionality provided by Game Center, and then offer additional extended services.

Whether they can continue to remain profitable in the new environment is the main question.

Do you think the iAds will change things in terms of the viability of ad-funded games?

I think iAds represents an interesting middle ground between free games with AdMob-style ads, and advergaming apps. Instead of trying to get a user to download a Coke-branded game, let them play whatever app they want, and then insert a Coke mini-advergame at an appropriate time.

If the content is clever and engaging, this could even be a positive experience for players. I fully expect a vocal minority to voice their disapproval over this marketing method, but hey, you're getting games for free.

IPhone 4.0 SDK marks further fragmentation of the iDevice platform. At what point do you think this becomes significant?

Market fragmentation will continue to be a problem until Apple stops charging iPod touch users for OS updates. At the moment, many developers, including Mind Juice, are still writing apps targeted primarily at version 2.2.1 of the OS. This is to ensure we can continue to reach the fairly high percentage of users still running the older software.

There are coding techniques that allow you to target older and new OS versions within a single app, but ultimately it means that, as a developer, have to make a decision about whether or not to use a new API as a core feature of your game or app.

If the new API can provide a better experience in some way, but the core game or app remains fun and/or useful, then developers can still reach the users with the older OS version

Sometimes, however, a certain app is just not possible without requiring a new API, so developers have no choice but to abandon market share in order to be able to create an innovative new app.

Thanks to Ken for his time.