Just want to let you know we have released a AC3D reader and renderer for the iPhone SDK.
Feel free to try it out, a demo lib for the iPhone simulator is available. Please note that the OpenGLES performance on the iPhone is not the same as in the Simulator.
It uses a optimization stage and build tristrips and builds final vertexarrays to be able to run on the iPhone.
http://memention.com/ac3dreader