The reason developers pay big bucks to attend Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference is to get the latest information about forthcoming devices and software - plus this year, a free sweatshirt that frankly looked like an Abercrombie & Fitch cast-off. Not that it stopped the geeks proudly wearing it around San Francisco.

Pocket Gamer can't provide low grade fashionware (our advice is you can be more interesting than jeans, and black probably doesn't suit you), but at least our WWDC learnings [sic] come for free.

1. Developers are frustrated by approval times

One annoyance we thought we'd seen the back of was the time it takes for Apple to approve apps and updates once submitted to the App Store.

Prior to iPad's release, Apple seemed to have beefed up bandwidth, reducing wait time from weeks to days. Now however, times are creeping back up, with more than five days an oft-quoted period. Still not too shabby, but if it gets any longer, expect the complaints to get louder.

2. Developers are worried about Flurry, and analytics

On one level, the expected banishment of Flurry - an analytics tools used in many games - from iPhone apps (it pisses off Steve Jobs apparently) is an obvious problem for developers who currently use the technology.

Yet there's a wider concern about analytics too. With no thirdparty tools now able to sample device activity at the UDID level, developers wonder how they will access data such as which devices and which OSes their users are on, not to mention more detailed information flows such as daily usage rates.

3. Developers hope iAd will save them

With 2009's 'drop to 99c' replaced by 2010's 'dash to free', pure iPhone developers are having to become increasingly innovative in terms of their business models in order to survive.

In such a situation, the promise of Apple's gold plated mobile advertising network, complete with $60 million from top quality clients such as Disney and Nissan, not to mention much higher click-thru rates, seems like a silver bullet. How it will work and whether there will be enough jam to go round remain key queries.

4. Developers are concerned about losing AdMob

More specific than the promise of iAd's jam tomorrow is the fear that today's AdMob jam will be taken away. With many developers generating solid revenue from AdMob's network - despite its use of the simple banners despised by Steve Jobs - there's real worry that iAd's introduction on July 1 will overnight shut off one of the spigots that has made free games on iPhone commercially viable.

5. App discovery remains a massive issue

With 225,000 apps available, and another 15,000 apps and updates being approved weekly, developer activity on the App Store remains frantic.

This mean getting attention for any release that isn't a licence or sequel is very tough. Ironically, it's a situation not improved by the 15 million or so new iDevices Apple sells per quarter which mean that many of games at the top of the charts - Doodle Jump, Skee-Ball, Angry Birds - aren't going to be giving up their slots any time soon.

6. Every developer will use Game Center. Most will also use something else

While all developers are happy Apple is unifying the social scene for iPhone gaming, the way it's doing this is raising some eyebrows. As yet, there's no specific launch date for Game Center, and while some guidance has been provided, there's not a detailed featureset either.

This means most developers expect to be using Game Center in conjunction with one of OpenFeint, Plus+, Scoreloop, Crystal or their own homebrew. It's not ideal, particularly as none of the thirdparty middleware companies have any idea how they'll be able to integrate with Game Center.

7. Game development is going to get more expensive

As much as developers love new gizmos such as the iPhone with its 326 dpi quadruple resolution screen, A4 chip and gyroscope, there's no doubt this will make the production of most games more expensive, while making the cost of developing triple-A games much more expensive. Conversely it's unlikely to increase the average price that can be charged.

8. Developers love the possibilities of the iPhone 4's gyroscope

Despite the wider consequences of the iPhone 4, there appear to be a lot of developers interested in making something small and funky for its gyroscope. Of course, in most cases, these games - although perhaps better described as quick tech demos - won't be backwards compatible with older iPhone's accelerometers, but developers are enthused to get their hands on something new, and something that will certainly change the types of controls used in iPhone games over the coming years.

9. Developers are making money on Android

Whisper it softly in Cupertino, but pretty much all mobile developers are thinking about Android game development and most are doing something about it too. Of course, paid sales remain weak, but they are slowly growing, and a handful of companies are happy to confess sales are "better than expected". Even Android's much maligned free chart is proving its worth with some of the most popular apps said to be accumulating up to $1,000 per day in ad revenue.

And combined with Samsung bada, Windows Phone 7 and other mobile platforms, and if nothing else, this will keep Apple more honest over the coming months.

10. No one (still) knows anything

Underlining the incredible vibrancy of the App Store, developers are changing - or preparing to change - their business models all the time.

Perhaps the best example of such experimentation is one small studio which is releasing its next game in six identical versions - the difference being it will be available in free and paid releases for iPhone, iPad and Android. Over time, this sort iof scattergun approach will hopefully generate some useful data about what works better and where.