The iPhone will soon start experiencing the trouble that most other platforms have had for a while now: varying hardware capabilities. Below is a video produced by “Real Racing” that is meant to show off the OpenGL performance of the new iPhone 3GS. With a regular iPhone, Real Racing can handle 6 cars on the screen at the same time. With the 3GS that number bumps up to 40 with no loss in frame rate. That’s 666% more cars, proving once again that Apple entered into a league with the devil in return for success in the marketplace.
How will developers handle the different hardware capabilities of the two iPhone models? Will they start making two versions of their games? How will the App Store handle multiple versions? If Apple has started differentiating the different iPhone models based on speed, what other things can they tweak in order to increase the number of products in the iPhone family?
These are questions that analysts will say they have answers to, but just like Steve Jobs managed to keep a live transplant a secret for 2 months, he is going to continue keeping Apple secrets just that: secrets.
Oh and if I have not said it already: Welcome back to work Steve.