Last week, we asked: “Is the rush to develop iPhone apps creating the next bubble?” The question sparked a ton of debate as to whether the web traffic and application downloads from iPhone and iPod Touch users are significant enough to build a business. Now, The New York Times is poising a very similar question in a story titled “The iPhone Gold Rush: Hoping to Make iPhone Toys as a Full-Time Job.” The premise of both stories is this: Can a company, ranging from a one-man shop to a multi-million dollar corporation make money off iPhone applications over the long-term? Most analysts, investors and even the developers themselves, admit it’s unlikely and that a bubble is brewing. Still, the number of applications available for the iPhone continues to grow, and entrepreneurs and inventors believe they have what it takes to be the next Facebook or YouTube of mobile. The Times does a good job of capturing the most high-profile success stories that are fueling this trend. Here they are:

—iShoot: Ethan Nicholas, a former Sun Microsystems employee, quit his job after his iPhone game sold thousands of copies. On his first day—Oct. 19.—he made $1,000. On the second day, it shot up to $2,000, but then hovered at $50 a day for weeks. In January, he released a free version, hoping that users would return to buy the full version. It worked, and on its peak day — Jan. 11 — Nicholas made $35,000. With his winnings, he took his family on vacation, hired a nanny, bought a new laptop and founded his one-man iPhone app company called Naughty Bits.

—iSteam: This application was the brainchild of Kostas Eleftheriou, a Greek entrepreneur in London, who wrote the program with the help of friends. Much like a mirror that fogs up in the bathroom, people can swipe their finger across the phone to wipe moisture, coupled by a realistic-sounding squeak. Over three months, the simplistic, but cute app, made more than $100,000. Since then, Eleftheriou ditched graduate school and instead is starting a company called GreatApps, which he operates with friends and two developers they hired.

—Trism: Steve Demeter, who wrote the game called Trism, may be the most well-known success story. The game, which involves aligning rows of brightly colored triangles, was released in July and within two months, he made $250,000. Demeter quit his job writing software for Wells Fargo and started his own iPhone game development company, Demiforce.

• Is The Rush To Develop iPhone Apps Creating A Bubble?