Revered coder John Carmack talks iTunes and iPhone development.
John Carmack, the acclaimed programmer behind Doom and Founder of id Software, has vocally expressed his interest in Apple’s iPhone software developmennt kit.
In a comment on a Slashdot article covering Apple’s support for portable gaming, Carmack noted, “We [id Software] have put in our application like everyone else, so I don’t have any inside information at this point.”
“Just based on the blurbs, it looks very good,” continued Carmack. “A simulator plus debugging on the native device is the best of both worlds, and a 70% royalty deal for apps over iTunes is quite good.”
In a related tangent, the programmer preached the importance of iTunes. He pronounced, “The iTunes distribution channel is really a more important aspect than a lot of people understand. 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. Based on our experiences with the carriers, I am betting not very quickly.”
