US developer GarageGames might not have released any iPhone games yet, but it's planning to later this year. We got some reactions to yesterday's iPhone 3.0 announcement from producer Brett Seyler.
"These are all really exciting enhancements to the iPhone SDK, and they'll be particularly useful to game developers," he says. "In-app payments are huge. We're really excited about incorporating more flexible payment models in our games."
Meanwhile, he's also enthusiastic about the new Peer-to-Peer features using Apple's Bonjour technology.
"It's definitely something we'll check out," he says. "While we've solved networking on the current SDK for our own games, it wasn't easy, and I expect many game developers would have struggled unnecessarily with it. So this is great."
However, Seyler is most enthusiastic about the new music features, allowing games to tap into iPhone gamers' own music libraries on the device.
"Games like the hugely popular Audiosurf just got enabled," he says. We'll definitely look into letting users add a soundtrack with interactive elements to our games. I think there's huge potential to mash up music and games in a really innovative way, particularly when the app can access a user's library of music and video."
On the downside, Seyler is disappointed at the lack of background processing for apps in iPhone 3.0, although he accepts Apple's reasoning about battery life concerns.
"While the push notifications might be a good workaround, there's no substitute for background operation to really make using a game more immersive and addictive," he says.
"I understand why it's not in 3.0, but it would have been a really killer addition for game developers."
For more developer reactions, check our iPhone 3.0 section throughout the day.
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Stuart is a freelance journalist and blogger who's been getting paid to write stuff since 1998. In that time, he's focused on topics ranging from Sega's Dreamcast console to robots. That's what you call versatility. (Or a short attention span.)
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