Click to enlarge

GameDaily BIZ recently posted a new interview with id Software's John Carmack. Although the bulk of the interview deals with id's launch of a studio devoted to mobile games and the challenges inherent in development for the mobile market, some of the discussion touches on Apple and its level of focus on the mobile game market.

BIZ: id's announcement that Rage was coming to Macs was a huge deal. Since you seem to have a long personal interest in Macs, might future games from Fountainhead/id come to the iPhone or iPod?
JC: We've certainly been looking at it but Steve Jobs and I have not been seeing really eye to eye on a lot of important issues. We were in a fairly heated argument at the last WWDC [Worldwide Developers Conf.] and we've had a few follow-ups. I have an iPhone right now and it's a platform I would enjoy developing for but Apple is not taking progressive steps in regards to [gaming]. Their strategy seems to be working just find from a business standpoint, so I'm not going to second guess them and tell them they're being fools or idiots for not focusing on this.

The honest truth right now is that Apple's not exactly hugely supportive of this. When they finally allowed games to be put on the iPod... in many ways it's one of the worst environments to develop games for. You have to work on an emulator... just all these horrible decisions. I expressed my fears directly to Steve Jobs that some of these mistakes might be carried over to the iPhone, so they're at least aware of all of them, but they're not giving any spectacular signs that it's going to be a big deal for them in the next year.

GameDailybiz: John Carmack On Mobile Gaming

Apple (add to watch list)

Search for other Mac games news stories or browse our Mac Games News Archive.