Thanks to TechCrunch for capturing some video of App Store visualization on display at Apple’s WWDC conference this week. A massive grid of iPhone application icons, arranged by color, pulsates as each app is purchased through the App Store.

And Font Shuffle a new program from Font Shop that picks random typefaces for you in a variety of styles, I guess for when you’re jogging or sitting on the subway in need of some letterform inspiration.

People have been talking about resolution-independent user interfaces for years—such a UI would gracefully scale larger and smaller, and look good on any display, whether an old 72 ppi CRT or a higher-resolution 163 ppi iPhone.

But I’ve never heard anyone dream of, let alone implement, an orientation-independent interface, one in which text and other elements would always be displayed “upright” from the user’s perspective, regardless of the physical orientation of the display in space.

The creators of the new iPhone game Dizzy Bee have done just that, however, and the execution is completely flawless. Just as the iPhone itself has set the standard for multi-touch interfaces, Dizzy Bee has broken new ground and established a successful structure for future orientation-independent UIs.

Here’s how it works: UI elements rotate freely so that their bottoms point down in the physical world, as detected by the iPhone’s accelerometer. This is appropriate, given that the game itself is played by rotating the physical device in order to direct the bee (and other elements) as they “fall” in the direction of gravity. Here’s an example of the UI shown between levels—this is one of the islands around which Dizzy Bee navigates:

And here’s that same screen, as it appears when I rotate the device around 180 degrees:

Notice how, while the island and compass rose remain fixed on the display (so they appear “upside down” here), all the text elements rotate to stay “upright.” Here’s a shot of the screen that appears when you complete a level:

Here’s that same screen, but I’ve tilted the device 225 degrees clockwise:

From this, I will infer four new guidelines for successful orientation-independent interfaces:

1. Each UI element’s top and bottom edges must be defined.
2. A point at which the rotation occurs must be specified.
3. Elements should be placed so as not to overlap too much, no matter the rotation.
4. Background graphics should be appropriate at any rotation.

And as if a ground-breaking UI weren’t enough, Dizzy Bee is also just really fun to play, with cute graphics, great sound design, and lots of puzzling levels to play through—for only $2.99! See it in action here:

• A new remote “erase” feature was alluded to during the enterprise portion of the presentation. How will this work, and who controls it? If I’m late paying my AT&T bill, try to break my contract, or try to unlock the phone for use with another carrier, will the phone self-destruct?

• Apple announced a new push notification service for developer use, but I’m guessing it ain’t free. How much will it cost, and who can use it? Will small, independent developers be priced out of the picture? And is it part of the new Mobile Me service, or can it operate on its own, serving users who don’t have $99/year Mobile Me accounts?

• How much will my monthly 3G phone bill cost? (More, presumably.)

• Is 3G service even available in my area? How can I find out before purchasing a new phone?

• Will Mobile Me’s push email service work only with me.com email accounts? (I’m guessing yes, which means I wouldn’t be able to use it with alignedleft.com.)

• How does the new Mail app’s UI for multiple-message delete/move work? This is new functionality for iPhone, but it won’t be useful unless it’s also usable.

• Same question for the multiple language support: How does the UI work for switching languages/keyboards? And can the handwriting recognition used for Chinese character input be expanded for use with other alphabets?

Also, Jobs mentioned that the audio quality had been improved significantly. It will be interesting to hear if that’s really the case.

Update: I also want to add one observation that I haven’t seen made elsewhere yet:

• It looks like iPhone 2.0 supports multiple iCal calendars, which was not mentioned in the keynote (nor on Apple’s site). This will be great, as it brings my iPhone calendar more in line, visually, with my desktop iCal calendar. (I hope this also eliminates the bug/feature of having new events entered on the phone sync unpredictably into the last calendar in iCal’s list.)

A new game called Trism is in development. It looks like Bejeweled, only the colorful blocks are triangles, and the UI more interesting because it uses touch-dragging and directional tilting of the device to manipulate the game. So as you match up blocks and they disappear, new blocks slide “down,” depending on which way “down” is in real life. (Sort of like Connect Four, except that in Connect Four, there is only one “down.”) So you can rotate the iPhone around in order to affect how new blocks slide into the game. Take a look at the video. It’s an innovative new UI.

iPhone-related bonus link: iPhone Stopwatch Hits 1,000 Hours, the geekiest video I have seen in a long time. Maybe ever.