The implication here is that Apple and gaming go together like oil and water
Aside from WoW, gaming on the Mac—how do I put this?—does not rule. Back when I had a G3 iMac and all I had to play was some dirtbag RTS, I was all, “man, I need an Xbox or something.” (Then I got and modded an Xbox.) But why does gaming on the Mac eat it so thoroughly, processor architecture now being irrelevant? Valve, the developers of Half-Life and Ken and Barbie Go To The Free Clinic, says Apple has only itself to blame for lack of developer support.
…we have this pattern with Apple, where we meet with them, people there go “wow, gaming is incredibly important, we should do something with gaming”. And then we’ll say, “OK, here are three things you could do to make that better”, and then they say OK, and then we never see them again.
It’s an issue of follow-through, like anything else in life. Maybe Jobs just hates gaming.
Gabe Newell Valve Interview – Orange Box [Kikizo via Mac Rumors]
I think the main cause is a chronic shortage of engineering resources at Apple. The fact that they had to pull people off Leopard and delay it for the iPhone probably hints at that. Apple would probably love to see more games on the Mac. However, if Leopard, the iPhone, or gaming support all need resources, well, gaming support is just not going to win out.
This is, probably, also another reason why we aren’t seeing more iPhone features: most of the resources are back working on Leopard. (Other reasons likely being: the iPhone is selling well, and there doesn’t seem to be any significant forthcoming competition.)