Apple’s iPhone is a cellphone, Web-surfing gadget and digital media player rolled into one. The iPod Touch is the same, minus the cellphone, but to many people’s surprise, one of the devices’ most popular uses is as a hand-held video game system. Games have become the fastest-growing and most popular type of application for iPhone and iPod Touch owners, outpacing all other categories available on Apple’s App Store. As of last week, 7 of the top 10 selling applications for the devices were games.

Game developers have taken to the platform, creating nearly 1,700 games since the online App Store launched in June. That’s more than twice the number available in the store’s second-largest category, entertainment, which includes music and video.

Neil Young liked his iPhone so much that, in June, the 43-year-old gave up a lucrative job as a senior executive of Electronic Arts to start a small company that develops games for the iPhone and iPod Touch. With funding from Maples Investments and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Young founded Ngmoco Inc. This strangely named start-up recently launched two games and is developing a dozen others. Its two titles, MazeFinger and Topple, are among the App Store’s 10 most-downloaded applications.

About 1 in 4 iPhone owners has downloaded games, compared with about 6% of all cellphone users, according to a study in July by Nielsen Mobile.

Source: LA Times