And there are already signs that designers might be thinking about the iPhone in more creative ways. Realtime Associates, a developer with a history stretching back to the Intellivision, is currently working on an interactive audio mystery game called Soul Trapper which, utilizing the iPhone’s iPod capacities, would be difficult to see existing on any other platform, while Oliver’s forthcoming Rolando seems likely to bring a much-needed injection of style to the App Store’s generally more functional offerings, while its publisher, EA vet Neil Young’s new firm ngmoco, is positioning itself as the ‘spiritual firstparty’ for Apple’s platform.

More tangibly, Demeter’s company Demiforce is creating Onyx Online, a free client that will allow developers to create standardized leaderboards, friends lists and achievements, hopefully bringing to the muddy world of iPhone development a little of the same clarity Steam has brought to the PC market.

Villavicencio ultimately puts the key to success with Apple itself. “It is really going to come down to Apple’s support of legitimate developers, enforcement of quality, and the curbing of tenuous Apps that will determine the iPhone’s place,” he says, suggesting that the platform’s great promise as an unregulated, open environment where anyone can make a game is also part of the problem. Famously, Apple entering the videogame space is something that’s been keeping Microsoft, Sony and even Nintendo awake at night for the last five years. It’s telling that, despite the financial miracles the App Store has wrought, there remains little for these more traditional console manufacturers to be scared of.

Apple has provided a platform, but it’s yet to convincingly take control of it, and seems happy to let it define itself. And as far as hardware’s concerned, the thought of Cupertino’s aesthetes bolting an ugly thumbstick on to one of their glinting slivers of sexy futurism any time soon is hard to sustain.

With the iPod, Apple changed the music industry, but it only had to look at how music was packaged and sold – it didn’t need to tell artists how to write songs. With the iPhone, it finds itself in the opposite situation: the sales channel is churning out produce, and people are snapping it up – but there are real signs that without the necessary guidance a lot of designers aren’t entirely sure what to make. The result is that a sizeable amount of them are making anything and everything, clogging the marketplace in the process. A company as forward-thinking as Apple must surely be wondering how much of a future there is in that proposition.