A history of iPhone keynote demos - how Apple uses games to flog its phones

The recent release of Oz: Broken Kingdom onto the App Store represents the latest in a long line of technically impressive games that Apple has worked into its iPhone keynote addresses.

Looking back at exactly which games Apple has used in its widely-watched presentations, and how it has used them, proves pretty instructive.

It illustrates much mobile games have advanced in just eight years, and how Apple's appreciation for them has shifted from near-total disinterest to the realisation that games are integral to the platform.

We don't start with the original iPhone, because that didn't even come with an App Store. Tough to believe, huh?

At this early point in the history of iPhone announcements, games were simply mixed in with other regular apps in a section dedicated to the App Store.

As such, we got a brief demos of Sega's Super Monkey Ball (ask your dad), which highlighted the potential for colourful 3D graphics and sophisticated tilty controls. We also got scrolling beat-'em-up Kroll, physics puzzler Enigmo, and Mario Kart knock-off Cro-Mag Rally.

Again, games were used in a pre-hardware-reveal app round-up for the launch of the iPhone 3GS, despite it being the first iPhone with real hardware grunt.

Apple hadn't quite realised how big gaming was or would become for its platform. It seemed more intent on pitching its new iPod touch as a rival to the Nintendo DS and PSP.

What we did get with the iPhone 3GS keynote were demos of Gameloft's Asphalt 5 and ngmoco's Star Defense.

Finally, it twigged. The iPhone with iOS was a major games platform, and the launch of the iPhone 4 in 2010 marked the beginning of Apple's newfound respect for the squillions of dollars it was raking in.

To reflect that shift, Steve Jobs called Chair Entertinment onto the stage to show off its new game, which was operating under the working title of Project Sword. It would be released several months later as Infinity Blade.

This was notable for being a single high-quality game running on a console-quality engine, and one that Apple used to show off its new machine's hardware chops. It's a trend that continues in Apple keynotes to this day.

This was a pretty momentous year as far as iPhone keynotes went. Not only did it see the launch of the Siri personal assistant, but the event would swiftly be marked by the death of Steve Jobs the following day.

On the gaming front, Infinity Blade had proved to be rather popular the previous year, so it was no great surprise to see Chair returning to the stage during the iPhone 4S launch to show off Infinity Blade II.

Among the bold claims made by Chair, the assertion that Infinity Blade II used "some graphics techniques that aren't even seen on high-end gaming consoles" left the crowd quietly impressed.

Apple's first iPhone announcement of the post-Jobs era had stretched-out 16:9 display and a slimmer form factor, which had a major knock-on effect for games.

Gaming on the iPhone finally entered the widescreen age, providing a little more room for virtual controls to boot.

Apple used Firemonkeys's lavish console-standard racer Real Racing 3 to show off the wider screen and the iPhone 5's A6 SoC, which was notable for being Apple's first custom mobile chip.

The iPhone 5S marked the biggest leap forward in performance for the range yet. Apple's A7 chip was the first mobile chip to move to a 64-bit architecture, which might explain why our crusty old iPhone 5S still runs so well.

Apple's keynote saw Chair invited back after a year off, but the game it had to show off was no surprise. Infinity Blade III was bigger, shinier, and even more serious.

Diminishing returns? Maybe for us gamers, but it showed off the iPhone 5S's performance boost admirably.

Arguably Apple's last major iPhone revamp, the iPhone 6 finally saw the company caving in to public pressure and making its screen a fair bit bigger. Goodbye 4-inch (at least until the iPhone SE earlier this year), hello 4.7-inch.

Also, hello 5.5-inch. This was the year that introduced its Plus line, offering the same basic performance in an Android-like large-screen form factor.

In keeping with this bold reinvention, Apple stopped asking Chair to come up and show Infinity Blade games. Instead it turned to Super Evil Megacorp's ambitious MOBA, Vainglory, which really did benefit from the larger display sizes.

In recent years we've seen that Apple selects its showcase games to show off headline features of its new phones - and we don't just mean its latest processor tech.

That can bee seen clearly with last year's iPhone 6S release, which was accompanied by a demo of Warhammer 40,000: Freeblade. This was a fairly unremarkable stompy mech shooter, but it looks great and - crucially - it contains 3D Touch compatibility, so pressing harder on the screen zooms in your view.

Yep, this was the big new feature of the iPhone 6S. Apple and games, sitting in a tree...

And so we come to the most recent iPhone release, the iPhone 7. It's been somewhat underwhelming, the biggest talking points being the removal of the headphone jack and the familiarity of its design.

However, it's said to be significantly more powerful, and it has a snazzy new screen technology that renders more colours than before.

Step forward Oz: Broken Kingdom, a suitably colourful new RPG that chucks about loads of polygons (400 flying monkeys!) and utilises the new iPhone's wider palette - not that we could see that on the presentation screen.