Seriously, some people don't know what they are talking about. Here's a quick lowdown of certain facts:
-There are now some 987 million downloads from the App Store. Game downloads are in the hundreds of millions. All this in less than a year. The App Store and the iPhone OS platform IS already a huge success, we don't have to wait for anything.
-You have basically two options when bying Apps, and these are the same as buying songs: pay with your credit card or pay using an iTunes gift card. What you buy doesn't show in your phone bill. When you buy Apps, you have to always type in your password so kids won't be able to buy apps unless you're stupid enough to give them your password.
-The iPhone OS provides rudimentary parental controls: you can block explicit content and access to certain built-in applications like safari, youtube, installing apps etc.
-Skype is already available on several phones, and it is rumored to be coming to iPhone as well.
IMO these are the building blocks of Apple's success with the iPhone platform:
-Innovative hardware/software platform
-Integration with iTunes
-Great developer tools and documentation
-A very good and easy distribution channel for the developers
If Nintendo would want to compete against the iPhone platform (which they don't seem to want to do, and quite honestly, why should they?) they would have to provide a similar or better platform.
-They certainly know how to make innovative hardware and software, so that wouldn't be a problem.
-They don't have access to a similar library of content that Apple has, and most probably would have to settle for a more limited library. The problem is that they would be starting from zero, so it would take time to negotiate the required contracts.
-I don't know what kind of dev tools Nintendo provides, but I highly doubt they are as high quality as the iPhone SDK and documentation Apple provides for free. Nintendo charges for their dev kit, and while it is a lot cheaper and for example a Sony dev kit, it costs a substantial amount nonetheless. Also, Nintendo is WAY more stringent in controlling who can develop for their platform.
-And finally, Nintendo could use the DSiWare as the distribution channel, but from what I gather they don't want it to be littered with thousands of minigames. Also, from what I've read the devs still have to deal with a lot more hassle than iPhone devs to get their games approved (for example apparently the devs are responsible for getting the ESBR ratings).
All in all, I think Nintendo and Apple are targeting a different portion of the markets, and also different kinds of developers. I believe Nintendo has a tight rope to walk to offer suitable DSiWare content without cannibalizing the full price game sales.
