EA's VP of Worldwide Mobile Studios Travis Boatman previewed more than 12 new iPhone games and gave live, hands-on iPhone sessions of Tiger Woods PGA Tour and Scrabble Connect (with Facebook) on Tuesday in the GDC session, "Navigating for Success in Today's Mobile Landscape."

The live iPhone demo of Tiger Woods PGA Tour offered vivid colors, crowd applause, an adept announcer and smoothly adapted touch controls. Boatman's fingers manipulated the familiar analog swing meter to putt, adding "english" to the ball in mid-flight by using the iPhone's touch screen.

Along with Tiger Woods PGA Tour, EA will ship FIFA 10, Madden 10, NBA Live 10, American Idol, SSX, Red Alert, The Sims, Need for Speed and a new version of Spore in 2009. Scrabble Connect was made available today in the iPhone App Store.

The live demo of Scrabble Connect conveyed how EA is harnessing "viral" gameplay by connecting Scrabble to an iPhone and Facebook. Facebook's Josh Elman demoed the game, which allows two to four people to play, including all of your Facebook friends, whose profiles appear on screen. Players can summon their friends in a matter of seconds. Additionally, players can play two games simultaneously while connected.

The crux of Boatman's session illustrated how game developers needed to be flexible and constantly adapt to new technologies, which in the mobile sector can appear monthly. Boatman said that EA's strategy was to regularly re-calibrate his team and refocus their energies, and warned that companies that didn't would fail.

"There are so many different phones and tech flows, and how you deal with these rapid changes is to be absolutely flexible," said Boatman. "Our ability to adjust has made us the number one worldwide publisher in the mobile space."

Boatman used Nielsen statistics to portray the current trend in mobile games, with traditional phone sales remaining either steady or in decline, while smartphones have dramatically increased, citing a 20 percent increase in North American smart phone sales.

"Initially, the iPhone provided great software and a sexy gadget that everyone loved," he said. "But it was missing distribution. Now, with the App store, it's got great hardware, software and distribution, which gives us the full realization of mobile's capability and potential as a games platform." Because of this, "We believe we are in the midst of another huge transition in mobile. This isn't new, it's happened before, and there will be more great phones after the iPhone, but smartphones are causing a big shift in the business."

He also pointed to the astounding number of people who owns phones in China, singling out the single phone carrier China Mobile, which has more than 415 million subscribers--or 100 million more mobile subscribers than people actually living in the US, according to the latest U.S. census.

"I've worked on many different systems, and people have said this before, but there is no better time to be working in the industry right now," Boatman said. "There is an enormous amount of opportunity and creativity thanks to this massive shift in the industry. There is the PS3 and Xbox 360, social networking, indie games, handhelds, the iPhone, and mobile devices are the most ubiquitous and exciting area of development."