PopCap Brings Bejeweled To the iPhone

After Apple opened the door for games on the iPod, it was only a time before games for the iPhone started appearing. While there are already many 'independent' games available for the handheld, established games are starting to join in.

Such is the case of PopCap Games that has announced the availability of a custom version of its popular game Bejeweled for the Safari Web browser on Apple Inc.'s new iPhone. Unlike games for the iPod, Apple has offered no official for developer to make games directly for the iPhone, leaving them to take the same route as everybody else… the browser.

Beginning today, iPhone users can log on to http://www.popcap.com/ via the iPhone's Web browser and play the iPhone-specific version of the original match-3 puzzler Bejeweled for free. This customized version of Bejeweled leverages the Web 2.0 capabilities of Safari and the wireless capabilities of the iPhone, and has been optimized to take advantage of the iPhone's unique display and input controls. PopCap developed the Safari-based version of Bejeweled in partnership with Polish developer Arkadiusz Mlynarczyk, one of the first programmers to take advantage of the Apple iPhone's capabilities for video gaming purposes.

"We are excited to be providing the most popular puzzle game of the 21st century to users of the most advanced mobile device yet created," said Andrew Stein, Director of Mobile Platforms at PopCap, in the press release. "We wanted to give the hundreds of thousands of iPhone users a fun, fast gaming fix -- and at no cost, no less."

Undoubtedly, this is only the first of many, and other game developers are already creating special versions of their games for the iPhone. Although practically any game that works in a browser without Java or Flash should work perfectly for the iPhone, the device's unique control and input method requires special attention and adaptation.