The last week or so has seen the arrival of the first significant third party applications for the Apple iPhone. We're not talking about AJAX web applications, we're talking true third party software running on the iPhone. The latest of these is the first NES emulator for the iPhone.

A programmer named stepwhite has delivered a native NES emulator for the iPhone based on the InfoNES core. Amongst the titles seemingly working via the emulator are: Super Mario Brothers, Zelda, Mega Man 2, Ikari Warriors, Metroid, Punch Out and more.

As the programmer disclaims, the emulator is quite clearly in it's early stages. Amongst the known problems are speed and sound. As stepwhite states,

Presently there is no sound, and the emulator is a little slow (most likely due to the way I'm drawing onto the screen). And the control is a bit iffy (using an image of an actual controller, while cute, sucks).

The ROM can be installed fairly easily using one of several drag and drop file browsers now available for the iPhone. If you want to give the emulator a shot on your iPhone, you can get all the required info by heading to the iPhoneNES project on Google Code.

As with all other existing 3rd party software running on the iPhone, the iPhoneNES project was built on the backs of the hard work of the #iphone-dev crew. If you're enjoying the fruits of their labor, you should donate to help their efforts continue.