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Until now, Apple has held an odd place in the gaming industry. Many of the hottest games for the PC have never sold as well on the Mac, due not only to a smaller market share, but also Apple offering only a handful of hardware configurations that can run the latest, graphics card-melting titles.

But on the iPhone and iPod Touch things have been different.

Apple now markets the iPod Touch as a gaming device. Both it and the iPhone 3GS contain updated hardware that can run 3D (and 2D) games quite well. On top of that platform, developers have built thousands of games that cost a fraction of the price of titles found on handhelds from gaming heavyweights like Sony and Nintendo; most can be had for just a dollar, compared to the $20 to $40 that portable titles on physical media fetch.

Something that has been more interesting to watch though than the steady release of cheap games, is the rise of free, third-party social networks that come built into these titles. These provide developers with a simple way to incorporate social feature into their games, while letting players use the same profile from title to title.

Recognize these services? They're the ones that are being integrated into most of today's hottest iPhone games.

(Credit: CNET)

In 2009 six of these networks popped up (not counting Facebook or Gameloft live), and are now vying for the top spot, both from gamers and developers alike. But which one will end up being the most widely used service as the platform matures--the one everyone starts using? After all, users will eventually tire of having to deal with different networks from game to game. Right?

We looked at six of the biggest, compared features, user growth, and development cycles, and came to the conclusion that developers have already picked a winner. However, fierce competition, and refreshed hardware and software from Apple could quite easily bring us a new front-runner by this time next year.

The players

Right now the leader is a service called Open Feint, which was launched just nine months ago. It can be found in around 600 titles on the App Store, and has a following of 6 million users. It offers a handful of social features, including high-score leaderboards, Facebook and Twitter score publishing, friend challenging, live chat, achievements, and cross-promotion for other titles that use it. The easiest way to spot it is in application logos, which often feature the green and silver Open Feint symbol if it's built-in.

Despite its current dominance, Open Feint's reign could be short-lived. One of the most immediate threats is Facebook. The social network, which now sits at 350 million users strong, is already integrated into many of the social-gaming platforms (including Open Feint) as a sub-feature. Developers know it's where users are likely to have an existing log-in and friends list, and Facebook has made it incredibly simple to include within an app by making a lightweight, portable version of its Connect service.

Right now Connect for iPhone does two big things. One is to let you log-in to apps with your Facebook credentials. The other is to share information to your Facebook news feed, and additional users of that same iPhone app. Though currently missing from Facebook Connect for iPhone, but present on Facebook's main site, are many things that could make the tool more useful, for both users and developers, including:

• A live chat service
• A payment system that it could draw credit from for in-game purchases
• A social ad system

Currently, these are exactly the types of things these third-party social-gaming networks are trying to accomplish. Where Open Feint and others stand to get overtaken in the long run, would be a more advanced version of Connect for the iPhone. One that would bring more of Facebook's community and features into each app, bridging its utility outside of games and into other iPhone apps as well.

Facebook's latest numbers say its Connect service is being used by more than 60 million monthly users, who are accessing it across 800,000 Web sites and devices. That may be a fraction of its 350 million registered users, but is quite large compared to Open Feint's user and app penetration on iPhone alone. (Note: Facebook would not reveal to CNET how many of those users were on the iPhone, or how many iPhone apps were making use of the feature.)

There's also no discounting Apple itself, which could buy up any of these platforms and offer it as part of its own application SDK. That is assuming it does not come out with its own solution in a future platform update. Surely developers would want to include Apple's social-gaming system if it was a more streamlined part of the company's existing software development tools. Right?

It's not too late for such a feature either. Despite the fact that the company has made baby steps in changing the iPod and iPhone's hardware to appeal to gamers, it made big moves during the course of 2009 to make the software and business platforms more appealing for game developers. This included the launch of system software 3.0, which finally opened up Apple's hardware to peer-to-peer file transfers, Bluetooth multiplayer, in-app purchases, and the use of external hardware peripherals. Later in the year the company also changed its stance on in-app purchases to allow free apps to offer them.

The game

To put all this in perspective, let's take a look at how we got here in the first place. When iPhone game development really kicked off (shortly after the release of Apple's native application SDK in 2008), one thing that was immediately missing was any kind of central service to track player data and scores. As a result, many developers were stuck creating their own servers to save player records.

Aurora Feint was one of the first iPhone games to have social features.

(Credit: CNET)

The first title to come out with its own solution was Aurora Feint, a puzzle game that blended role-playing elements with falling, colored pieces users had to arrange to clear the board. Its crowning feature (besides being fun) was that it let users send their name and contact information to Aurora Feint's servers. The game would then scan for friends when they started using the game, and then challenge those friends to a score duel.

The only problem was that Apple didn't like this behavior. Not only was it being done without first asking for permission, it also violated the part of Apple's SDK agreement that said that a user's contact list could only be used within the app, but not shared with other users or stored on third-party servers. As a result, it was temporarily removed from the App Store.

Aurora Feint's creators worked it out with Apple and made it so that the app would first ask for permission before sending that information, as well as securing the information on its way back to the server. Following these changes, the app was re-released.

Five months after the release of the first Aurora Feint title, its developers, Danielle Cassley and Jason Citron, launched a sequel called Aurora Feint 2 (app store link) that added features like live chat and leaderboards. These features would go on to become the underpinnings of Open Feint, which would launch just three months later.

Open Feint was not the first to have its own platform, however. Competitor Geocade beat it to the punch by launching in January. Its big twist, compared to what Aurora Feint offered, was to let users see how their scores matched up compared to nearby gamers. To make it all work, the service would check for each user's location when they first launched the app. It also gave developers a chance to make a little money by hosting ads on the scoreboards, then splitting the revenue.

Geocade started out small with just two titles, and can now be found in 80. Unlike the others mentioned in this story, it also works on Google's Android, allowing developers to go cross-platform.

Geocade's big launch feature was that it would let players see how others around them were scoring. The service also offers a live view of the latest scores on its site.

(Credit: CNET)

After Geocade, came Facebook Connect for iPhone. While missing many of the features that would later be built by the independent networks, Facebook's offering was a very big step for social gaming on the iPhone. The popular social network was offering gamers a way to sign up to use applications with credentials to a service they were already using. For app developers, that meant that they didn't have to maintain a special user database. More importantly though, it would advertise their app out to that player's Facebook wall. Facebook Connect went on to become built-in to many of these third-party platforms, simply as a feature.

Facebook Connect for iPhone allowed gamers to publish scores to their Facebook walls, as well as slurp in friends lists.

(Credit: Facebook)

Just days after Facebook Connect was released for the iPhone, Open Feint became available to developers. Version 1.0 of its service launched with 30 titles. It offered chat and leaderboards, along with a way for users to join using their Facebook or Twitter credentials.

Open Feint was (and still is) free for developers as long as their apps were free. However, if an app cost money, Open Feint would charge based on how many users were using it each month. The service would also get a small cut out of any in-app purchases if they were suggested through its iPurchase system, which listed other apps using Open Feint.

A month after the launch of Facebook Connect and Open Feint came Scoreloop. Like the other networks, developers had to code it into their titles. In turn the players got their own profiles that stayed the same from game to game. They also got leaderboards and the capability to challenge other users on the service to score matches.

Where Scoreloop really stood out from some of the competitors was with its own built-in micro-purchase system. Unlike the other platforms, which were using in-app advertising, and cross-promotion, Scoreloop let developers build small charges into their apps using a virtual currency system. Players could win these coins by challenging other players (and winning), or by receiving them as a reward for completing certain parts of a game. The system is also set up to let users buy coins directly from Scoreloop, the revenue of which is then split with the developer.

Following Scoreloop came Agon, which is currently the second most widely used social gaming platform on the iPhone. Like Geocade, it came out the gates with leaderboards that could be geographically filtered, game achievements, and user profiles. However, Agon's big feature was that it took very little effort to stick into games; one line of code in fact.

Since release, Agon has put out two incremental updates that added a few more features to the mix. The first one added landscape orientation (so that players could use it with their device turned sideways), saved game data sync, and a way to publish high scores to Twitter and Facebook. This was followed up with the introduction of profiles, which would let multiple users share gaming profiles on the same device.

Right after Agon's release, Open Feint launched its second iteration. Released during Apple's World Wide Developer's conference, version 2.0 included a universal log-in--one that could be used across all Open Feint-enabled games, and across multiple devices. It also made it easier to discover other Open Feint-enabled titles that other users were playing, regardless of whether or not you were friends with them. This gave the service a social pulse, as you could see which games were getting the most attention at any given time.

Plus+ is one of the most exclusive iPhone game networks. Developers have to pitch their wares to get access to its SDK.

(Credit: CNET)

Following the release of Agon and Open Feint 2.0 was Plus+ (reads: plus plus) from publisher Ngmoco. Unlike all of the other networks mentioned thus far, Plus+ was introduced as a "premium" network, and one without an open SDK. This meant that developers would have to pitch their apps to get a crack at using the service. As a result of this, Plus+ remains one of the least-used services, but one with some very high-profile games.

For players, Plus+'s core features included a profile system, friend challenges, achievements, leaderboards, social score comparison, and social score publishing to Twitter and Facebook. It also had its own status message system that lets players post what they're doing for other Plus+ users to see. Developers, on the other hand, could get placement within other Plus+ apps, a way to push out notifications of game challenges, and a built-in analytics engine that could show them more information about the players who are using their game.

Ngmoco's approach with Plus+ would later lead other game publishers to launch their own systems. The latest is Crystal from Chillingo, which is currently in an invite-only beta. Like the others, it includes leaderboards, achievements, cross-promotion and social publishing to Facebook and Twitter. Chillingo is also letting developers completely re-skin it to match their apps.

Other publishers, however are keeping their tools to themselves. This includes Gameloft, which has what it calls "Gameloft Live," a service that includes a friends list, live chat, achievements, a mail network, and scoring system. It was originally launched last year for the company's mobile games, before being retooled for Gameloft's iPhone games in late 2009. Unlike the other solutions, the social service cannot be plugged into third-party titles--just Gameloft's latest releases.

Bigger is better

While competition has spawned better features among these services, the future brings a growing need for a more unified network. Even if all these networks begin to become impossible to differentiate, users are eventually going to want a less-disjointed platform when jumping from game to game, and app to app. Thus far Facebook, and even Twitter to some degree have provided that constant, just by giving users a way to log in to these platforms.

The unification can shake out in a number of ways though, the most likely of which is consolidation. Open Feint can continue to grow until it's snatched up by a larger company (like Apple). Or it can begin absorbing, or muscling out the other, less popular networks.

As mentioned before, Apple plays a big part in this: not only in how it changes the hardware, but also how it continues to evolve the business of the App Store and information sharing between applications. But that's not to say the company is in complete control. At the moment, developers--and not Apple--are calling the shots on which one of these mini-social networks is, and will continue to be, No. 1.

Update: Shortly after this post went up, the app was removed by the developer.

(Credit: Apple)

File it in the "get this while you can" category. Last week Apple approved a 99-cent application called iRwego that features both the sounds and artwork of the Super Mario series from Nintendo. And yes, it's still up--though probably not for long. Update: the app has since been taken down by the developer.

The app, not blessed by Nintendo, plays more than a minute of music from the Super Mario game while using the iPhone/iPod's accelerometer to take into account any physical movement by the user. In turn, it plays back the same jump sound effect found in Nintendo's Mario games. The idea is to run the app, then stick it in your pocket and pretend to be everyone's favorite plumber.

Along with its accelerometer-powered sound effects, the app also acts as a soundboard, playing familiar sounds like the "worp worp worp" of the green warp pipes, jumping on enemies heads, and hitting the familiar orange question mark power-up boxes. There are also two Mario quotes: "Here we go!" and "Oki doki!" which can be played just by tapping the white, on-screen speech bubbles.

In the app's description, developer Jerome Alves says there's an updated version awaiting approval from Apple that adds extra music as well as vibration for sound effects like breaking bricks. That is, if it doesn't end up in the App Store's blacklist first.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNET. But based on recent IP squabbles over games like Stoneloops of Jurassica, expect action to be swift if Nintendo gets involved. If it does, there are a slew of other Mario-specific apps on the App Store, but most are simply game guides. Though others like Ricky, iMarioSounds and iMario could draw Nintendo's ire, since they don similar use of the company's sound and visual assets.

Here's a demo of what it looks like:

(via the Touch Arcade forums)

The App Store has been a huge success for Apple and for some developers, but there have been a few hiccups along the way. Apps have made it past Apple's rigorous reviews machine only to be pulled down permanently, or have their developers required to remove key features.

Those who still have some of these apps can consider them collector's items, since they continue to work, despite not being able to be re-downloaded from the App Store. We've rounded up 10 of the most notable pulls (along with one that had to be tweaked for less functionality). Click the slideshow link below to get started.

Any we missed? Leave them in the comments.

App Store collector's items: 10 rarities (images)

(Credit: CNET / Josh Lowensohn)

Ever wondered what some of the graphical differences are in games that make use of the newer hardware in the latest versions of Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch? So were we. That's why we put together a screenshot comparison gallery of 13 games, all of which are either packing extra OpenGL ES 2.0 goodies, or that more complicated graphics modes that run a whole lot better on the beefier hardware spec.

As for our testing, we ran each title on an iPhone 3G and a third-generation iPod Touch, the latter of which packs the faster innards required for some of the advanced OpenGL effects.

To our surprise, there were very few apps on the App Store that made use the new graphical spec, and even fewer that required a standalone version of that application to do so. However, many of the developers we talked with said that they were cooking up new titles that would be pushing these new devices a little further than what they had already created. That's good news for those with a newer iPhone or iPod Touch, but a definite thorn in the side of those who might not be able to play some of near-future App Store releases on their original iPhone or iPhone 3G.

Click on our slideshow link below to get started. We've also included links to each version of each app (in case there are variations), all of which open up in iTunes. Also, in case we missed any, feel free to leave them in the comments and we'll try to add them later.

Update: We've added bonus screenshots of Ravensword, the upcoming 3D RPG, as well as top-down pinball game Wild West Pinball.

Images: iPhone games graphics showdown

See also:
The future of iPhone games
For games, no big rush to speedy iPhone 3GS
iPhone developer: 3G S graphics will be sooo much better than PSP's

Video host Vimeo on Wednesday is launching support for users on iPhone/iPod Touch and Google Android devices. The company has re-encoded the entirety of its staff picks and HD video showcase, both of which are the most heavily trafficked areas of the site from Vimeo's members, and referrers like Twitter.

"We've been working on it for the last few weeks," Blake Whitman, Vimeo's director of community told CNET News. "This is sort of the prelude of offering Plus members iPhone support; and in the future, an app," he said. In the meantime, the only member videos that get chosen to get the mobile encoding treatment are those that get picked by the site's editors. "In the future, like the next several weeks--maybe longer, we'll be offering Plus users the option to transcode their videos to an iPhone version too." Whitman says those special encodes could end up as a download option alongside the links to the source file, letting users save a copy that could be played back offline.

Even with the change, Vimeo continues to face stiff competition from Google-owned YouTube, which automatically encodes an iPhone-friendly version of any video that's uploaded. The popular video-sharing service has also re-encoded most of its back catalog to make its videos playable on it, and other mobile devices that don't run Adobe's Flash player. That said, YouTube had a leg up on many of its competitors (Vimeo included) by being built into the phone's OS.

The new feature, and mobile-friendly version of the site should be live right now. Whitman says that those on iPhones/iPods and Android devices will see a special mobile version of any video page for those that have been re-encoded, however some videos that work on iPhones and iPods may not work on Android right out of the gate.

Some Vimeo videos can now be watched on iPhones, iPods, and Android devices.

(Credit: CNET / Vimeo)

Adobe Systems on Friday introduced a new Photoshop app for Android users that lets them edit photos from their phone, as well as access their online photo collection on Photoshop.com.

The app comes just shy of a month after the release of the company's application for Apple iPhone and iPod Touch users, which quickly became the top free application in the App Store and grabbed a million downloads within a week of its release.

The version for Android shares the same, simple editing UI as the iPhone/iPod version, both of which let users make edits by sliding their fingers across the screen and undo any changes made. It also features some very basic photo editing tools like crop, rotate, and image flip, as well as controls for adjusting exposure and tweaking color tint and saturation. Android users even get one new tool that iPhone/iPod users don't even have yet, which lets them straighten a shot against a grid.

Photoshop for Android looks similar to its iPhone/iPod sibling, but has a few less editing effects.

(Credit: Adobe Systems)

Here's the bad news though: Android users are getting a slightly-less featured version than those who use it on iPhones or iPods. The Android version is missing a whole menu full of filter effects, which can be one of the most enjoyable aspects of using the app. It's also missing the sketch tool, which can add a neat cartoonish effect to photos.

Snap this to jump straight to the app.

There is one feature that could make up for these omissions though, and that is the inclusion of an auto-uploader that can automatically send any photo you take on your Android device to Photoshop.com's cloud storage. Users just need to turn the option in within the app, and it will do it whether they have the app running or not. The only downside to this, is that just like on the iPhone/iPod version, you can only enter the Photoshop app's editing mode on photos that are stored locally.

Photoshop for Android can be found right now on the Android Marketplace. We've also included the app's barcode so you can hop right to it without having to type anything.

Moodspin, a very eccentric social-networking add-on service has just had its app (link opens in iTunes) approved on the App Store. In case you're unfamiliar with the site, it currently works only on Twitter, and lets you very quickly broadcast how you're feeling to the people who follow you.

But here's the catch: it's not just text, the service goes in and makes small changes to your profile icon, adding that same mood-related emoticon to your photo, which in turn lets others see what you're feeling no matter what you just tweeted.

Is this useful? In the grand scheme of things, not at all. What's interesting though, is how it tracks that data back on Moodspin.com. Each time you update your mood status it's charted on a timeline, which if you're actively using the site, will show others what you were up to at various parts of the day. Each mood selection is also represented on your daily mood graph which you can compare to just your friends, or everyone else on the Moodspin service.

As an iPhone app Moodspin's initial offering is relatively simple, letting you select your mood in three taps, which can be fired off as a personalized update to Twitter. If there's enough room, it also (annoyingly) tacks on a URL to your Moodspin profile so that others can see what you've been brooding about posted as moods during the past 24 hours. There is however, no way to track your past moods from the app itself, something I'm told is coming in the next big update.

In the meantime, a version of the service which is due later this month will be implementing Facebook status messages and mood changes to user's Facebook profile photos which tend to be quite a bit bigger than Twitter's. However, there it will compete with a myriad of other mood apps that have existed since the launch of the Facebook apps platform.

Moodspin's iPhone app lets you set your mood in a couple of taps, the result of which is a new tweet and Twitter profile picture.

(Credit: CNET)

Apple has provided plenty of ways for users to discover new applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch, but on the sharing side the company has come up a bit short. Third-party blogs and social networks have done well to seize this opportunity, creating tools that help filter and sort apps old and new in ways Apple itself has not implemented.

One of those tools is Chorus, which is going live on the App Store early Tuesday. It's basically its own App Store meets social network, where users can share apps they've purchased with others, keep track of what their friends are buying, and discover new apps to buy either through the people they've befriended or from Chorus' hand-picked editors.

Chorus does one big thing the App Store doesn't, which is to allow each user to share their purchase history. Unlike the faceless reviews you see overflowing Apple's marketplace, reviews within Chorus' network are all attached to users you can befriend and follow to see what they've recently rated, reviewed, installed, or uninstalled.

As a new user, you can very quickly populate the service with all this information using a tool the company calls the Gobbler, an Adobe AIR-based application that scans your iTunes library and finds app purchases. You can then go through to check which apps you want to make public with your friends and the service's recommendation engine (note: by default, the Gobbler and Chorus apps are both smart enough to know that you probably don't want to share something that's rated 17 or over).

Chorus' content Gobbler scans your iTunes purchases so you can add them in bulk.

(Credit: CNET)

Once you've shared your application history with Chorus, it helps fuel what the service recommends to you--just like Apple does with its own Genius service. This is where the app goes one step further though; it lets you see which of those apps your friends have used, if they've rated it, and whether they ended up removing it from their device. It also weights its recommendations higher if your friends have it installed.

To befriend other users you can cull your Facebook or Twitter contact list to find those who may already be using the service, or search by whatever username they've using on Chorus. The app also comes installed with a handful of subscriptions to the service's "AppMavens" who are bloggers that seed the network with their picks and reviews. Frankly, I found these the AppMaven's reviews less useful than the App Store's user review section, which--major faults aside, can shed light on things a single review can't, like how well it works on various devices, if there are any bugs, and what version the app was reviewed on.

Chorus recommends apps your friends have used and downloaded, as well as showing you how they reviewed them.

(Credit: CNET)

The saving grace with the Chorus reviews system is that like other third-party app directories, all purchases still go through in the App Store app itself, which means you can still scope out those user reviews before making a purchase. On the downside, when it comes time to buy, you get kicked out of the Chorus app and sent into the App Store. This can be jarring but is made slightly less irritating by the fact that the app is smart enough to remember what you were doing the last time you were using it and bringing you back upon a relaunch.

All in all Chorus is a useful tool for discovering apps that should become increasingly useful if more people seed it with recommendations. Though there are a few things I'd like to see in future versions, the first of which is a way to manage purchases and do app discovery from the Web and not just on the device--something the company says will be coming at a later date. Another is a way to queue up apps you want to purchase, then e-mail yourself that list in the form of iTunes links. This would let you continue to use the tool without interruption, and facilitate batch purchasing.

I'd also like to see recommendations of people to follow based on my download and/or usage history since that would help me whittle down who I'd actually spend time paying attention to. This, or some sort of visual relevancy indicator about how much of a match any given app is to my buying habits would go a long way towards making me, and likely others feel better about clicking through to see more about that app.

See also: App Gems, App Connect and AppVee (all of which open up in iTunes), as well as site AppShopper.com.

Despite increasingly better software, blogging on phones is still a real pain compared with doing it on a regular computer. However, credit is due to WordPress, which has gone to great lengths to make the latest version of its iPhone app much better for users to both create and manage their blogs on a small screen (and without a keyboard).

Besides a new look, one of the biggest changes is that the app remembers exactly what you were doing between sessions, so that if you quit it, or get a phone call, it will take you right back to the page or menu you were looking at. This also keeps you from losing anything you hadn't saved if you're interrupted--even if you were in the middle of a writing a sentence when your phone rang. This should change the beginning of such a conversation from "I am so mad at you right now" to a simple "hello."

In addition to remembering what you were doing, the app does a much better job at letting you manage user comments. The approval screen itself looks almost identical, but the app now lets you quickly switch between the ones that have been approved and the ones that still need to be looked at. It also displays each users' Gravatar (user icon) next to their username and URL, which ends up taking up a little more space than it did in the previous iteration of the app but adds a sense of familiarity with its desktop sibling.

Other small changes include the app remembering which order you uploaded the photos in so that they display in that same order in your post. Although the app still hasn't been updated to include videos, which means 3GS owners will have to add whatever video they shot through WordPress' Web interface instead. The app also now stores passwords in a user's keychain, which means those credentials could be accessed by other applications you may want to give access to later on down the line--like, say an app that lets you post videos to a WordPress blog.

Oddly enough, the new WordPress app is completely different from the original, which still exists but will no longer be updated. The company attributes this to having switched between having an outside contractor make the first version, whereas this new one was built in-house.

The new look makes it simply to hop between comments, posts and pages. User Gravatars are now visible too.

(Credit: WordPress)