The Escapist takes a bite of the Apple. Tastes like iPhone

Our good gaming pals over at The Escapist have put their hands in their pockets this week and dedicated an issue of the popular gaming culture magazine to Apple, iPhone, and the games, applications and companies that have exploded around it.

Robert Stoneback peels back the touchscreen to take a look at the mature side of Apple's otherwise prudish handheld, to examine the iPhone's potential for sex, games, and sex games in his article Apple's Forbidden Fruit.

"As it currently stands, adult games on the iPhone haven't evolved much beyond their Atari and NES equivalents," Stoneback says. A lot more could be done to bring the iPhone into the Virtual bedroom.

"By allowing developers to bypass traditional retail outlets, the iPhone could theoretically be the ideal platform for sex games. There's clearly a market for it, and the iPhone's online connectivity means the platform isn't beholden to potentially squeamish brick-and-mortar outlets."

Les Chappell takes a look at a different, though often just as seedy, area of gaming: the arcades. In An Arcade in Your Pocket, Chappell investigates the burgeoning trend for retro adaptations on the Apple handheld.

"The positive feedback from players and critics alike has been enough to encourage programmers to continue adapting retro games for the iPhone," explains Chappell. "All indications are that developers enjoy working with the platform, and classic gaming fans are reaping the benefits."

Features editor Jordan Deam has also put his hand deep inside his pocket, and took the opportunity to show Digital Chocolate founder Trip Hawkins what he found there.

"Everyone knows how much I love games and how willing I am to be out on the bleeding edge of new media," Hawkins explains to Deam in his interview entitled Cooking Up Digital Chocolate. "Because of Apple, we now have billions of consumers thinking that indeed, they do want and need a mobile content platform."

Closing out this week's iPhone-centric issue of The Escapist is Philip Miner, who takes a look at their territory where new technology is normally devoured by the eager consumer, but in which the iPhone is only recently gaining any real traction: Japan.

"Earlier this year Japanese middleware developer CRI revealed that over 80 percent of the game developers they interviewed wanted to develop for the device," explains Miner in How Do You Like Them Apples. "Apple has tapped into this curiosity in Japan by providing a product and attitude that is unabashedly Western."

Head on over to The Escapist talk thumb through these particles and take part in the discussions flaring up around them. And don't forget you can tune in to the weekly Escapist Bulletin right here on Pocket Gamer (and check out the Pocket Gamer Report on The Escapist, of course).

To round out the team's iPhone phone, video editor Fletcher put his crew in front of the camera and jammed an Apple in their mouths for this week's video show. Check it out below.