As the year draws to an end, it's time to look back at what happened in the world of mobile gaming during 2009.

Equally, the lessons of history are useless without a future to demonstration what we've learnt, so as well as asking various notables about their view on the past 12 months, we're also getting them to look ahead to 2010.

You can see the full list of our end of year interviews here.

Dave Castelnuovo founder of Bolt Creative, kicked off 2009 with a new idea about a game-come-entertainment app where players could interact with pygmy figures on a desert island. Well, we say interact. More like kill in imaginative ways...

The result was Pocket God, a million-selling phenomenon that was especially popular among teenaged boys, and easily the most updated game in App Store history.

Pocket Gamer: What was the most significant event of 2009?

Dave Castelnuovo: So many things happened over the year, mostly led by Apple. Apple cemented its status as the future of mobile gaming. Other companies did their best to respond to the iPhone phenomenon by releasing their own me-too App Stores and devices, but so far none of them have captured the excitement surrounding Apple's product. Even Sony responded by releasing the PSPgo and PSP Minis.

In-app purchases for mobile games was another huge step forward led by Apple.

However, I think the biggest part of 2009, or what it will be known for, is being the peak of the iPhone gold rush. Don't get me wrong, I think the market will continue to expand (and probably accelerate), and there will still be room for independent developers to get discovered but there are so many apps that most developers will need to make some tough decisions on whether to stick it out or move to a smaller, more financially stable platform.

What was the most significant event for Bolt Creative?
Pocket God took our entire 2009 by storm, it started in early January and will continue well into 2010. It's really amazing how this little game really made a huge impact and is allowing us to do things that we always dreamed of doing.

What was your favourite mobile game of 2009?

This is such a hard question. There are a lot of games I really like: Knights Onrush, Mini Squadron, Mecho Wars, Doodle Jump, Geo Defense Swarm. But I haven't had a Zelda experience on the iPhone yet, something that just pulls me in and blows me away. Hopefully the iPhone gets its Zelda in 2010.

What do you predict will be the most important trends in 2010?

I'm sure there will be advances in technical areas. Augmented reality will become more sophisticated, more advanced accelerometers will allow you to do gesture-based input, faster internet will start rolling out. I think it will still be too early for these technologies to make any major impact though.

I think the main trend will be the maturing of the market. Mobile gaming on phones hasn't really made a dent in the Nintendo DS or PSP market share yet. However, EA finally found a foothold where it's able to dominate the top grossing list and I think this will pave the way for additional big publishers with bigger games to make it onto the iPhone.

If 2009 was the year of the indie developer, 2010 will be the year of the big publisher, which will allow the iPhone to start really competing with PSP and DS.

If you could enforce one New Year's resolution, what would it be?

I would love to have better discovery in the App Store. Apple continues to make a ton of progress in this area but there is a lot more to do. Apple's promo spots and top 100 lists are currently the only real points of discovery. I would love for iTunes to add more community tools like Amazon where people can create and share lists with their friends.

Thanks to Dave for his time.

You can follow Bolt Creative via its website and Dave via Twitter.