Why not. I saw this 2d engine he used and it is really easy to use and has physics already built in.
I also think his mom did a good part of the work and I was shocked to see their photo. The boy looks like 12 and the mom looks like a man.



I am not sure about the iPhone market, I am on Android. But I can tell you for sure that there are still big chances just because good games are missing. I mean, look at the "best" games there:

First there are tons of tower defense clones, most of them ugly and with repeating and boring gameplay.

Then there are totally nonsense games where you have to cut moving fruits with your fingers (e.g. Fruit Ninja). I dont get the hype around it, but this is silly.

There are ugly and simple made jump and run games like Doodle Jump.

There are some match-three-games, most are simple and not very nice looking.

There are some NES-Emulators.

Something like Angry birds is the best you can get currently and this alone tells all about this market.

So if you dont come with a stickman graphic and when you add some nice gameplay you will rule the market for sure.

I know that popcap is porting Plants vs. Zombies to Android. And I can assure you that they will make Millions with it even with zero marketing budget, just because there is no alternative to it.

There is simply too much crap in these market stores and because of that you have to create something better than crap.

But I found that really impressive games are coming to Android now. Look at this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeyQ-PC_cwc
This game has been made with the Unreal engine. I even did not know that UDK also works on Android now but it looks that way. And users who bought it wrote that it runs fluid on my phone (HTC Desire HD):