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The iPhone is no stranger to competition. Just like its Mac cousins, it's constantly in a market share race against a wide-open field of contenders, and it knows its way around a courtroom, where Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) lawyers have a habit of schooling the opposition.
However, it might be games of a more casual nature that will really make or break the platform.
iPhone and iPod touch games have been a breakout category in the iTunes App Store. Case in point: Just this week, Ngmoco, which publishes games like "WordFu," "Rolando," "Dropship" and other games for the iPod and iPod touch, got US$10 million in its Series B round of funding.
That money came from Norwest Venture Partners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and Maple Investments. Norwest put principal Tim Chang, who has strong views on venture capital investment, on the Ngmoco board of directors.
The iPhone is easy to develop for, and the market is gigantic and growing, Young said at the Game Developers' Conference in San Francisco on Tuesday.
"For the iPhone, the main factor is the creative apps designed for it," Tim Bajarin, principal analyst at Creative Strategies, told MacNewsWorld.
"In that area, it has a tremendous leadership over the BlackBerry, Palm and the Android phones, and they're clearly going to continue to grow," he said.
Lawsuits? Pish and Tush
Apple and AT&T (NYSE: T) are facing numerous lawsuits over the 3G service for the iPhone, the most recent filed last week by Damone Dickerson of New Jersey.
They are also being sued in California, Alabama, Florida and Texas.
Meanwhile, there's heavy speculation that Apple may sue Palm over the Pre, which sports multitouch capabilities very similar to those of the iPhone.
No big deal, Bajarin said. "Apple's been in all kinds of lawsuits over the past five years, and it hasn't affected their ability to grow."
The suit against Palm is still just speculation, and as for the 3G service lawsuits, the problem partly lies with AT&T's network, so the complainants will find it difficult to pin the blame on Apple, Bajarin said.
Here Comes Al
Finally, nothing spells confidence in your company like having a high-profile politician raking in the moola for gracing your board with his presence.
Former Vice President Al Gore has just been granted options to buy another 10,000 shares of Apple stock as part of his ongoing reward for sitting on the company's board. These have a conversion price of US$102.62, and the conversion expires March 19, 2019.
Apple share prices closed down 99 cents Tuesday at $106.67, or nearly 1 percent, as the market overall slid from Monday's spectacular climb. Week-over-week, though, shares grew by $10, riding the market's generally upward trajectory.
