Id eyes iPhone SDK

Id software head John Carmack today expressed interest in Apple's iPhone SDK (Software Development Kit) in a comment on a popular tech news website. The iPhone SDK, which Apple released today during a town-hall meeting at its campus in Cupertino, will bring support for OpenGL/OpenAL to mobile developers alongside access to the handset's 3-axis Accelerometer. "Just based on the blurbs, it looks very good -- a simulator plus debugging on the native device is the best of both worlds, and a 70 percent royalty deal for apps over iTunes is quite good," Cormack wrote in a comment on Slashdot.org.

"The iTunes distribution channel is really a more important aspect than a lot of people understand," he continued. "The ability to distribute larger applications than the over-the-air limits and effectively market your title with more than a dozen character deck name, combined with the reasonable income split make this look like a very interesting market."

"This type of developer/customer interaction is probably the wave of the future for mobile devices, it will be interesting to see how quickly the other players can react," Cormack concluded. "Based on our experiences with the carriers, I am betting not very quickly."

by MacNN Staff