It's more fun to create something novel that many people use and appreciate (e.g., an iPhone game). Much better than research prototypes that go no where beyond a publication or two.
ok, i'll bite ;) if everyone thought the way that you did, then we'd still be programming by submitting our punch cards to some gigantic centralized machine. think about how much basic academic research occurred before the invention of something like the iPhone became possible
There are plenty of necessary things in life that aren't exciting to do. There's nothing wrong with pointing it out unless you're trying to get more people to unwittingly do those things without fully understanding their choice.
EDIT: I'm not trying to say that pure science is universally unexciting. Few things are. But generally, more people seem to be interested in consumer products than pure science research.