According to John Carmack, technical director at id Software, the reason Apple’s efforts to create a good gaming platform (in the Mac) in the past failed was because Apple’s CEO, Steve Jobs, is ‘not a gamer.’

“The truth is Steve Jobs doesn’t care about games”, said Carmack. “This is going to be one of those things that I say something in an interview and it gets fed back to him and I’m on his [black] list for awhile on that, until he needs me to do something else there. But I think that that’s my general opinion. He’s not a gamer.”

Speaking during his QuakeCon 2008 keynote, however, Carmack was full of praise for Apple’s iPhone, which he claimed to be as powerful as a PS2 or original Xbox. id Software has had great success in the last few years with their mobile range of games, with DOOM RPG and Orcs and Elves selling a combined 2 million units. Developing for the iPhone, then, is an exciting prospect for Carmack, stating that any game they may have planned “would be a graphical tour de force”.