Besides the announcement that Facebook’s biggest game, FarmVille, is coming to the iPhone, Apple CEO Steve Jobs had plenty more to say about mobile gaming this morning.

Most of it centered around new hardware. Competition from Android smartphones seems to be accelerating Apple’s already-fast development of the iPhone, with Jobs saying later in his presentation that his company has taken the biggest developmental leap since the original iPhone. Three major additions could affect gaming: the addition of a gyroscope, a new display, and a new high-resolution camera.

The gyroscope is perhaps the most important for gaming. Previous versions of the iPhone already had an accelerometer, compass and proximity sensor, but the gyroscope should being a new level of motion sensitivity to the device.

On stage, Jobs showed off Jenga, the famous balancing game in which the player progressively removes pieces from a tower. The demo appeared to go off without a hitch. Physics games will be the major beneficiary of the new gyroscope, but other games, including some with a social component, could also come out ahead. SGN’s Skies of Glory, a World War II fighter plane simulation, seems like an obvious example.

The new “Retina” display runs a close second in importance. Jobs claims that it beats a cutting-edge OLED screen, not to mention some four times better than the iPhone 3GS, with an 800:1 contrast ratio. On the same 3.5 inch display that has been standard to the iPhone, Apple has packed in 326 pixels per inch, equal to 78 percent of those available on the iPad.

In a way, the new display is overkill: Jobs pointed out that the human eye can’t distinguish more than 300 PPI from a foot away. But the improvement is still meaningful for small-screen games.

In his demo, Jobs actually showed off the new display with a New York Times app, pointing to how crisp text becomes at high resolution. That should help game developers design buttons and controls that are clearly distinguishable yet stay out of the way of the gameplay. The display will also raise the graphical bar overall for the iPhone, ultimately making it easier to smoothly move games to the iPad.

The final hardware feature worth pointing out here are the new cameras: a five megapixel, high-resolution unit on the back, and a brand new camera facing out of the front. We’ve previously seen some innovative iPhone games like GunMan, which used the camera for augmented reality sniping. Crisper images should allow better games along that line, and the new front camera could also be of use in games.

A few more details on the hardware should emerge over the next couple of days, but at this point the area to watch is OS 4. Jobs did announce that limited multitasking will now be allowed, which could help developers, and the new iAds may make advertising-supported gaming more viable. However, Jobs also suggested that there are 100 other new, unmentioned features; we’ll be keeping an eye out to see whether they might affect gaming.

[Thanks again to Gdgt for conference coverage and photos]