You might think that the push notification technology unveiled yesterday in Apple's iPhone 3.0 announcement is more for social networking apps.

However, Distinctive Developments boss Nigel Little says it's just as useful for iPhone games, including its Anytime Pool title, which is due to be published by EA Mobile soon.

"We’re really excited about the push notifications and how we can use those to alert players to what other players have been doing within our social games," he says.

"This would be great for Anytime Pool but also we could do team based games where you and your friends play as a team and you can let your other team members know that you need their help ASAP to succeed."

Little also says he's intrigued by the new access to Apple's Maps API for geo-location based games, although he says the need for visuals to remain consistent throughout a game may limit its use within premium titles.

The new ability for games to access music stored on the iPhone also excites Little.

"Access to the music library on the device is something that most developers have wanted to do, so that will improve your experience when playing a game as you will get to choose what to listen to."

Anything missing from iPhone 3.0, from a game developer's point of view?

"We’ve not been able to look in-depth yet at the feature set but from what we’ve seen so far then access to a live video stream from the camera seems to be missing," says Little.

"Augmented reality is something that has been demonstrated and is very impressive on Android. It’d be great to see similar tech working on iPhone too."

However, Little is more interested in improvements to the App Store's ratings and recommendations system - something that could well be launched separately, since it doesn't depend on the 3.0 software.

"We’d like to see more opportunity for players to rate the games they are playing with reminders to do so," says Little.

"This could then drive a proper recommendation system where you would see ‘People who enjoyed this game also enjoyed xyz’."

Still, Distinctive plans to use the push notification and music features in its upcoming social iPhone games, while it's considering the impact of micro-payments too.

"Ultimately it has to make sense within the context of the game but it’ll be useful for creating episodic games and maybe cut down on the clutter within the App Store," says Little.

For more developer reactions, check our iPhone 3.0 section throughout the day.