Iterate/Integrate
There are a couple of interesting approaches to iterative technique in development, and these are magnified in the iPhone world.
The first is that agile development style (aka rapid prototyping) I mentioned earlier. Because teams can be small and ideas can flow fast, you can really go through many stages of iteration on your game ideas pretty quickly. This can start with fast prototypes and run continuously through development….many iterations and evaluations that bring design changes quickly. I think this is one advantage that the small independents will have over the big publishers. Be fast and be agile.
The second is listening to and learning from your players and making iterative changes often - kind of a perpetual beta state. Guys in the casual PC space (like Zynga, Playfish) have been doing this for years and it has actually become a key design feature.
Integration is another unique feature to making games on the mobile side and can be very dramatic on the iPhone. Integrated features are still few and far between and I think this is an area with huge potential in the future.
Our new augmented reality games, Boomerang AR and Bubbles Bubbles, both start to tap into this exciting area. They use the camera to add on-screen elements to the real world. In the latest, bubbles are created by blowing on the iPhone microphone, and then they float through your real environment (as captured by the camera.) Poke the bubbles and they pop with a nice little bubble sound.
When I speak of integration I’m also talking about game apps that can work with other apps on your iPhone besides the camera, or that can somehow incorporate a user’s personal data and info in new and surprising ways (contact lists, favorite pages, etc). I think when we really get dialed in to how integration can work in our designs, there are going to be amazing games and apps that go beyond just a game or the device.