It's just a rumor at this point, but yes, apparently it's floating around out there that Apple may be considering a $19.99 price point for "premium" games in the App Store. That would be a direct response not only to bigger developers who say a 99 cents to $9.99 price point is too low for them to justify the cost of production, but also to competing game systems like the DS and the PSP -- if the same games were available for the same price on both systems, Apple could use the iPhone's extra features to justify even more purchases.

It's an interesting idea, and actually, though obviously it would cost consumers more, the bottom line in the App Store has always been worth, not price -- there are currently premium games being sold on services like Xbox Live and the Wii's Virtual Console for $20, and gamers are willing to pay, as long as they get the bang for the buck that they expect.

We'll have to see what approach Apple takes here. On the music side of things, they were obviously very hesitant to move up the price points (though even there, they made concessions and did so). As popular as the App Store is, a higher price point, if used correctly, could really open up the kinds of software we're seeing there.

Grand Theft Auto isn't out for the iPhone, but Payback is --it's basically a 3D version of the old top-down GTA gameplay, improved with better rendering and lighting. You control the game by pressing "buttons" on the screen, and tilting the iPhone around, and Touch Arcade says it works well. Some missions are apparently tough, but in terms of what GTA is really about -- driving around and generally causing mayhem -- Payback will deliver.

Unfortunately, textures (both visual and audio) are rough, as are the actual physics, so it seems Payback is more of a "GTA could work on the iPhone" demo rather than an actual game (though of course you can play it, it probably just won't be as fun). Still, we're in favor of any game reaching high on the iPhone, and this one definitely does.

Payback is out in the App Store now, for a substantial $6.99. But it's worth it, especially if you're a big GTA fan, just to see such a complex game on Apple's little handheld. Video on the next page.

There's been some growling and teeth-baring between Apple and Palm lately, but Engadget wanted to know: does Apple really have a case against Palm for their patented technology? They put their (and our) legal correspondent, Nilay Patel, on the case, and in this long but very interesting analysis piece, he answers: probably.

But things, as usual, aren't that simple. Apple's patents don't just cover "multitouch" -- they cover very specific behaviors using the multitouch feature, and if Palm's Pre phone doesn't use those behaviors, there's no infringement. Of course, Patel is only going off of video of the Pre -- they don't have it in hand yet -- so things could change before the unit is released, but they do find significant evidence that Palm may have stepped on some lines it shouldn't have.

Then again, as Patel and patent attorney Mathew Gavronski discovered, Palm's got some tricks of their own -- they've got a whole slew of easily findable patents that the iPhone appears to infringe upon, including using an ambient light sensor to define brightness, looking up contacts just by using initials, and a number of other functions. Then again again, Apple's got pending patents in the fire that it can revise in case they think Palm is really trying to hone in on their business.

So bottom line, this could be really messy or it could be really simple, and Engadget concludes that the ball is in Apple's court -- if there's going to be a war, they say, the first shot will be from them. Personally, I think it's all corporate posturing -- as Patel points out, Palm has much less to lose, not having sold a single unit yet, and Apple is just making sure they know what's what. But there is a lot of money here, and if one side decides it'll cost less to go after the other, the fur could fly.

As we know from the iPhone television commercials, if there's something you need to do, there's an app for that. And so apparently, if the thing you want to do is solve a Rubik's Cube, then yes, there is an app for that. CubeCheater will help you quickly solve a Rubik's Cube -- all you do is punch in the colors on your cube right now, and then you get directions, complete with rotating graphics, on what steps to take to solve the cube.

It's not built from scratch -- the app uses an algorithm already developed for solving the Cube -- but it does take advantage of a surprising amount of the iPhone's features. You can draw the colors on the virtual cube yourself, or even take a picture of your cube's sides and the app will recognize where the colors are. The latest update adds support for non-standard cubes, so if the colors aren't quite the same on your cube as on the screen, you can change things around.

Impressive, even if it is a little limited in practicality. It's in the App Store right now for 99 cents. Obviously, the point of a Rubik's Cube is solving it yourself. And if you really want to cheat, you don't need an iPhone. Just do what I do: take the little stickers off and replace them in the right places.

[via Cult of Mac]

One of the first applications I used and enjoyed on my iPhone, Sketches, has updated to version 1.5. New in this version is the ability to change the alpha settings for colors (so you can change the opacity of the drawings you make on photos you take), and an edit mode for the corkboard view, to rearrange your drawings with. Additionally, they've moved uploaded photos off of a third-party server and onto their own page, so (for right now, anyway) no ads to get in the way. Not new in this app: a quality, fun, and surprisingly robust photo and image editor designed for the iPhone.

We've heard from the devs that there is a version 2 on the way as well, and both this version and that one are free to anyone who's purchased the app. But if you haven't picked it up yet, it is available for $4.99 over on the App Store, well worth it if you often take and share pictures with your iPhone.

Our friends at Joystiq make a very insightful and very telling discovery: the iPhone more or less owns the finalist list for the 2009 Independent Games Festival Mobile category. 11 of the 14 contestants aren't on the Nintendo DS or PSP -- they're built and played on the iPhone and the iPod touch. The popular Fieldrunners and Igloo Games' Dizzy Bee are standouts, but even innovative games like Galcon and the pseudogame experience Ruben and Lullaby are being honored with nods.

Very, very telling -- the relatively low cost of entry into the App Store and the versatility of Apple's SDK makes the iPhone/iPod touch a dream platform for independent game developers, and clearly, even with less than a year of development time, Apple's handheld is making a big splash in the industry. Sure, there's still a few pricing hiccups that need to be worked out to get bigger developers on board in a big way, but for smaller and single person independent game developers, there's never been a better platform on which to make and market your games.

Dan Moren over at Macworld has picked up the App Store pricing gauntlet yet again. He somehow equates the iPhone's price dropping to $199 as a symbol that cheap people are shopping the App Store -- as if anyone who's interested in spending $199 on a phone can be called cheap. But he's starting from the right place: from AppCubby's donationware scheme (they sell apps for 99 cents and ask people to donate more on their site) to the Sound Grenade developer (he made a self-described "terrible" app in 20 minutes and threw it up on the App Store -- only to get hundreds of thousands of downloads), something is very weird in the world of apps for the iPhone and iPod touch.

Moren's final point seems to be that an excess of 99 cent apps is pushing the really talented developers out of business (because they can't make back what they put into the software by selling it for 99 cents), but there's still something wrong there. If someone can sell 100,000 copies of an app for a buck apiece (walking away with $70,000 after Apple's cut), why are the talented developers leaving? Surely you can make a quality app for less than $70,000, right?

We're obviously still closer to the beginning of how the App Store will eventually shape up rather than the end. It sure seems like developers who create worthwhile apps would find a way to pay for them, but if they can't, then yes, it might be worth another look at the pricing setup from Apple end.

Chop Sushi is a brand new game from our friends at THQ in the App Store that combines a love of the Japanese raw fish dish with an interesting twist on the kind of gem-matching battle gameplay that Puzzle Quest made famous (and addictive) a few years ago. It's still a matching game, except you're matching wasabi and rolls instead of gems and skulls, and instead of choosing one gem to switch another, you choose a piece and then swipe it to the end of a row or column, making a match anywhere on the board (as the rest of the pieces fill in for the one you moved). It's hard to explain, but easy to pick up, and tough to master -- the different movements make this one worth a look even if you've played Puzzle Quest or any of its spiritual successors 'till exhaustion.

Hey, remember Lights Off? We first posted about it in the relative Stone Age of iPhone development, when the only SDK we had was writing web pages and when you had to actually jailbreak your iPhone to do anything cool with it. Nowadays, of course, we live in storied times, and so Lights Off has returned, this time on the App Store as a $1.99 app. It does look a little different, but the new version has been redone from scratch, and has added in some sound effects (even though you can't hear them in the video above). If you liked the game then, you'll probably like it now, too.

And yes, we have now come full circle -- developers have recreated, with Apple's official SDK, a program that was originally created without an official SDK, so people who jailbroke their iPhone back then to play the game can now do so without jailbreaking their iPhone. Got all that? We know -- it hurts our head, too.

The sharks are swimming the waters around Macworld Expo. They must smell blood: first we hear that Apple may be headed to CES, and now iLounge has announced that they're sponsoring a "pavilion" at next year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. I've never been, but you have to think that there have always been at least some iPod and iPhone-related displays at CES, even if most of the hoopla is a few states away at Macworld. But now CES is making its move, apparently. With Apple pulling out of Macworld for good (and that event focusing on the Mac), CES and iLounge may be looking to get in on some of the iPod and Apple action.

In fact, there's a FAQ for the event that says exactly that -- CEA heard that exhibitors were planning on skipping Macworld, and weren't sure about appearing at CES, so this pavilion is designed to pull exactly those people in.

Obviously all of these events are almost a full 12 months off, and anything can happen in between now and then. But CES and iLounge apparently aren't wasting any time trying to nab some iPod-related attention away from IDG's Macworld sans Apple.

Our good friends at Download Squad found a great app on the App Store called Air Photo that will let you wirelessly print pictures directly from your iPhone or iPod touch. Just install the app (for $1.99, cheap if you print your iPhone's photos often) on your mobile device, put the server on your Mac (or PC, if you swing that way), and then you can snap and print at will. Connecting to the server from your device opens up a Bonjour window, where you can crop or adjust the picture and then print whatever you like.

While the technology itself won't be that helpful for everyone (who really prints pictures any more, especially iPhone pictures?), it is interesting to see this done so easily and well with a wireless connection. Sure, there's apps like Remote and the Keynote controllers, but it seems like the iPhone-as-wireless-accessory idea is still relatively untapped on the App Store.

Reader Sam K. (thanks!) noticed the fun on Twitter -- lots of folks are sharing their memories of the first Mac they bought/used with the #firstmac hash tag, and boy is it fun reading through them.

The responses are all over the place, from the old ][e (technically my first computer ever at school, though the first one I actually owned at home was a Tandy Color Computer my Dad bought from one of his coworkers) and //c up to the old iMacs and even a few people who can only claim iPod as the first Apple product they used. The first Mac I actually owned was much later than my first steps into BASIC -- when I needed a laptop a few years ago, I picked up a 12" Powerbook G4 and have been straight OS X ever since.

It's great to read this stuff, because you can see just how Apple has shaped people's lives. I was amazed to hear all of the emotion in the calls to Steve on our talkcast last week, but looking at something like this Twitter feed (to put your own memories in, just mark a tweet with the #firstmac tag somewhere in there) really shows you how dedicated Apple's products have made the company's customers. These people have all bought a Mac, whether it was a Mac SE (errrr, a Mac Classic?) or a MacBook Air, and never looked back since. Very cool.

And while we're at it, is it possible that you're on Twitter and haven't yet started following us? If not, jump in and do so now!

Mac OS X has been pretty much a dream for me. I can't ever remember getting the Apple blue or gray screen of death. My Mac Pro is up 24/7 and only reboots when I've done a software update. Most of the time it happily chugs along. The same is true for my MacBook Pro. It's been problem-free except for one bad battery that started to swell. Apple eagerly replaced it.

That makes it all the more vexing when minor things go wrong that seem pretty unexplainable. One little problem is Apple Mail notification sounds. They seem to work about half the time. I have 3 email accounts, and the one that is the most unreliable is the MobileMe account. Even though mail sounds are turned on, I usually don't get any sound when mails comes in. I use the 'glass' sound, but it fails on any selection. My POP mail accounts seem to trigger the alert properly.

This same problem existed in Tiger, and has survived several Leopard updates. This minor but irritating issue exists on both my computers, and so far has eluded all my detective work to eliminate it. This bug is impervious to permission resetting, changing default mail sounds, playing with the sound control panel, (yes, 'play user interface sounds' is checked) and making sure that Growl and other 3rd party hacks are nowhere on my computers. The guys at the Genius Bar scratch their heads and smile.

The Apple support boards are full of similar complaints, and when you eliminate the people that had their sound turned down, or the other obvious fixes, there is a pretty large residue of people who have this problem. Apple must be aware of it.

Don't get me started on the error I get 2-3 times a week when Time Machine tells me a backup didn't work, and then the next hour everything is fine. This is another error that has survived several Leopard updates. Like a good citizen, I always do the larger combo updates to have the best chance of replacing any bad system components.

Every OS has a long list of issues. Actually, I find the current build of OS X the most reliable system software I have ever used. That said, I'd love to see some of these little bugs cleaned up. I'm sure you have your own lists and will share them.

Maybe Apple will read this and send me a fix for my notification sounds issue. The problem is, I probably won't notice the mail when it comes in. Grrrrr.

Illusion Labs is probably best known for their first app, iPint, but have been making splashes since then with interesting apps that make great use of the iPhone's features and touchscreen. I tried out their Touchgrind app, and while it was a fascinating demo of how to combine an in-game physics system with the sensitive touchscreen controls, it was a little too tough for me to use (you have to really be a skateboarder, since the app really is a fingerboard, basically).

But Sway looks much more casual, and still puts the touchscreen and tilt abilities to great use. Like Rolando, it's a cartoony, physics-based platformer, but unlike Rolando, the mechanic here isn't rolling, but swinging. You swing the little characters around, and then use the touchscreen to grab onto various parts of the environment while exploring it.

Very intriguing. Like Touchgrind, the controls might be a little too sophisticated to appeal to all players (it looks tough coordinating which hand is which and exactly when to grab and let go), but we'll have to see how it works out -- if it starts out in an accessible way, Sway might be really impressive. Illusion Labs didn't tell us a price yet (their two other paid games are $5 and $7), but the game is set to hit the App Store soon.