@ozmic - Ive been using C++ in unity running visual studio as the dev environment, its really quite nice, its very familar to actionscript and I found it easy to pick up.

Objective c scares the bejesus out of me, it seems so verbose, and odd, but the flipside is its going to be faster and more compatible.

I tended the unity path on the offchance I made a sweet fun game then it could be immediately ported to other platforms, the same theory also applies if the game bombs on the iphone I can redeem myself with a browser version

Id learn ob-c though if it came with a familiar sort of framework for sprites and stuff like you are talking about.

I await with baited breath.....