I saw the other day that a programmer under the nickname “stepwhite” had managed to get a usable - but not particularly elegant - port of the InfoNES emulator, complete with games, to the iPhone.  At the time it seemed to be more a proof-of-concept than anything else: it ran slowly, relied on you jabbing at an on-screen image of the keypad, and you couldn’t save your progress making it faintly impractical as an ongoing commute-time distraction.

Now, however, some enterprising iPhone hackers - NerveGas and NightWatch (who also goes by the more mainstream name of Patrick Walton) have taken that starting point and turned it into what might be the first must-have for retro gamers with iPhones.

Both speed and functionality have been addressed in a complete re-write; it’s now as fast as you’d want it to be, with far better control that makes better use of the MultiTouch screen.  Installing it will require access to the iPhone’s file system, but once you’ve done that your only problem is keeping an eye on the time so that you don’t spend all day playing.

You can download the updated NES app for iPhone here. 

[via TUAW]