App Store developers can be a rebellious kind -- we've already covered the story of a company shooting their price up to $40 just to show their customers how much they could be charging, and now, in response to an overly defensive trademark owner, developers on the store are putting the word "Edge" in their titles. Even high profile releases like the sequel to Eliss and the popular Canabalt are becoming Edgeliss and Canabedge. Critter Crunch becomes Critter Edge on their main page, and so on.

The story starts with a guy named Tim Langdell, who started a company a while back named Edge Games. Since he founded that company, he has mercilessly gone after any other game company who dares to use the word "edge" in their title, claiming that he has the trademark to any and all "edge"-related gaming. He's gone after EA's Mirror's Edge and a few other titles, but the App Store has been a prime target, where he simply contacts Apple, claims the app is in violation of his trademarks, and gets apps pulled without a problem. The latest target is a title called Killer Edge Racing by a company named PuzzleKings, and reportedly Langdell has gone so far as to trademark that name, despite the fact that the game using it has been around for years.

Hence the indie game developers' "edge-volution." They aren't actually renaming their games in the store, just showing off solidarity with other developers against what they see as Langdell's wrongdoing, and getting the word out about his actions against "edge" on the App Store.

It would have been nice for the App Store's public relations team if the biggest news in the past few days was the introduction of a more transparent progress report for applications under review, giving developers some of the feedback they need to see where their apps are in the pathway towards approval and release. Unfortunately, that minor but tangible step toward a more open approval process is overshadowed by a story of frustration and disaffection from one of the platform's rising stars: Joe Hewitt, the man behind Facebook's popular iPhone app, is mad as hell and he's not going to take it anymore.

Hewitt's frustration with the app review process isn't new, but in the same August blog post where he called for the elimination of review, he promised "I will not stop developing for Apple's platforms or using Apple's products as long as they continue to produce the best stuff on the market." A few months later, he's announced that he's handing off the Facebook app to another developer, and he's reached the point where his frustration has overcome his willingness to continue working on the iPhone. [Commenter 'Gak' points out that Hewitt's open-sourced Three20 library for iPhone devs has been flagged for use of private frameworks, which may have been one of the final straws.]

Hewitt spoke to TechCrunch earlier today, and his attitude is clear:

"My decision to stop iPhone development has had everything to do with Apple's policies. I respect their right to manage their platform however they want, however I am philosophically opposed to the existence of their review process. I am very concerned that they are setting a horrible precedent for other software platforms, and soon gatekeepers will start infesting the lives of every software developer."

Losing the talent behind the top social networking app in the store is bad for users and bad for the platform, but I don't imagine that Apple is going to give up the lockdown of review anytime soon. Is there a way around this logjam that will let developers innovate at Internet speed while still giving Apple some semblance of control? Here's one idea...

The C64 emulator that was pulled from the App Store by Apple for leaving a BASIC interpreter intact has now returned, though we presume it's minus the Apple-offending code. But while it will no longer run your own code, it will run some old-school C64 games, including eight for free with the app, and more coming with in-app purchases. It's got everything you'd expect from an emulator, including original sound and graphics, an auto-save, and the option to play in fullscreen portrait or landscape.

In fact, the only thing it doesn't have is an interpreter, but of course you know why that is by now: Apple doesn't want anyone running code on their devices that they haven't approved through the App Store. The app sells for $4.99 right now, and they expect to release the in-app purchases sometime this December, with no price announced yet.

Want an iPhone app business without all the boring hassle of actually programming and releasing iPhone apps? Boy, does Brice Milliorn have a deal for you! He's auctioning off his iPhone app business, which he says has 87 different apps for sale, over on eBay.

Milliorn says he started out developing apps on his own, but the business is just too big for him to keep up so he's selling all of the apps and their rights, all of the source code, and technical support for two months to transition everything over to the new owner. He doesn't specifically say that he'll transfer the developer account on Apple's App Store to your name (he says he'll send over a DVD with the source code and transfer "the whole kit and caboodle" to you), but we presume that's what will happen -- of course if you go for it, you're doing this at your own risk.

What will a burgeoning App Store business, complete with apps like iSexyRef and Swine Flu cost you? Just a cool $100 grand. That's the starting bid in the eBay auction, which has just over a week left and no bids as of this writing. There are certainly less expensive ways to get started selling apps on the store. It only costs $100 to register in Apple's Developer Program for a year, and then you just need to find a developer you can pay -- or even do it yourself with a helper service).

If you'd rather start off with a bunch of marginal to silly 99-cent apps and happen to have an extra $100,000 lying around to spend (maybe for a nice holiday gift?), here's your opportunity.

Ngmoco's Eliminate has been building up buzz ever since it was announced, and now the first-person shooter is out on the App Store to try for yourself. As you can see above, it offers some relatively basic FPS gameplay when compared to shooters on other platforms (I've been having a lot of fun with Borderlands lately), but given that this is the iPhone we're talking about, this kind of twitch 3D gameplay is actually pretty impressive. You can play online over 3G or Wi-Fi, and as you play, you can earn credits and level up, which gives you access to more weapons and better gear. The game itself is free, but it's all based around a microtransaction system where you buy "energy" which allows you to earn those aforementioned resources. You get a certain amount of energy per day on your own, and if you use it up, you can't progress any further unless you get out the wallet or wait another day. And the game uses ngmoco's own Plus+ social interface to track leaderboards and accounts. Interesting plan, and we'll have to see if players vibe with it or not. Some have already voiced strong concerns about the in-game pay-to-play microtransaction system.

If that doesn't vibe with you, and you'd rather play some old-school (and old business model) FPS gameplay instead, id's Doom Classic also got released on the App Store last weekend. That game comes at a cost of $6.99, but then again, with old-school Doom, you know exactly what you're getting into. And you won't have to buy any extra energy to charge your BFG and slay any demons you happen to come across.

Just in case you missed it, I got my wish from a while back: there is an official version of the classic board game Settlers of Catan, called just Catan, on the App Store right now. I'm still playing Kolonists, the unofficial knockoff that got kicked off of the store for infringement, but if you've got wood for sheep, this official version should get you your portable fix. If you're unfamiliar with the Catan juggernaut, check out this thorough piece from Wired.com.

There's hot seat multiplayer gameplay (I assume you just can't cheat by looking at what resources other people have), or a few AIs to tangle with if you don't have friends at hand, and the game includes a scrollable board to play on, game stats to track, and a tutorial for those of you who haven't rolled the dice and tried to build the Longest Road yet.

The game is created by United Soft Media, a German company that's also ported the game to the DS, and while it's not quite as shiny as the Xbox Live port (my personal favorite version of the game, outside of the real thing, of course), the reviews on iTunes say it gets the job done, at least while you're waiting for the next board game night (and while we're talking about board games, can I recommend Dominion? Best table game I've played in years). The game is $4.99 and available right now. Anyone have any ore?

With all of the success stories coming out of the App Store, it's been pretty easy to forget the problem of piracy for most developers. Not so for Fishlabs, who've posted over on the Touch Arcade forums that their latest game, Rally Master Pro 3D, is experiencing a 95% piracy rate. You read that right: supposedly 95% of the people playing the game on the iPhone haven't paid for it.

There's probably a multitude of reasons why that is -- the app is $7 with no trial version, it's not a super-popular app quite yet (so one pirated copy on a popular message board is probably traveling farther than the copies coming off of the official App Store), and there are probably at least a few other factors in the mix that we don't know yet. Still, 95% is obviously pretty darn high for a platform that's supposed to only deliver software through Apple's official store.

Now, fortunately Fishlabs doesn't sound litigious -- they're not pulling the old "piracy = lost sales" fallacy that many companies in this situation would do. They are lowering the price on the app -- they expected it to be worth more, but apparently their consumer base seems to disagree. They tell Mobile Entertainment that they'd entertain the idea of providing content only through Apple's in-app purchasing service (presumably, that would prevent piracy by locking down the extra content), but they also say that's a gamble they've tried and missed on other platforms before.

Of course, it'll take more than one post on one message board to make hay out of the problem of app piracy -- it definitely happens, but on the other hand, there certainly are apps selling well, and there are also apps not selling well that don't have this level of piracy going on. Apple already has lots of authentication and validation processes in place, but if app piracy is this big a problem for everyone, they may need to look at more.

We've mentioned Digital Chocolate and their App Store releases before, of course, and we've even mentioned just how prevalent they are -- they've been extremely prolific in releasing new titles, and as a result, they've posted on their website that they are more or less ubiquitous in search results. They say on their official blog that any search of a "single digit" on the App Store search window has about a 20% chance of pulling up a Digital Chocolate release. If you search for "D," "H" or "3," they're the number one hit. I don't actually know anyone that searches "D" anywhere ("You know what I really want to play tonight? A 'D' related game!"), but it just shows how many releases they've got out there.

That does get them plenty of downloads -- they also say that they're number one in downloads on the platform as a whole, with 40 million downloads already of their software, with 1.5 million reviews (!) total -- but I think it says more about the App Store in general, and that we're not quite as far along as it might seem. If one company could so easily own, say, Amazon's search, you'd just say that Amazon needed a bigger catalog, no? 85,000 is certainly a lot of apps (especially in the realm of mobile software), but in terms of the platform's progress as a whole, it's still in its infancy.

So we're definitely in for more growth. Even Digital Chocolate sounds a little surprised that they're so prevalent, and I think as the App Store ecosystem grows and we get more and more companies with popular titles in different areas, we'll see the search results become more diverse.

Disgruntled TUAW commenters, I'll save you some time: "OMG Mike of course a game powered by EA and one of the most popular franchises of all time is a hit. Try reporting some real news!" But not so fast -- Rock Band, which hit the App Store top 10 and conquered the Top Grossing list just days after its release this week, is actually a more unlikely hit than you think. For one thing, it sold at a price of $9.99 only -- no free versions, no trials, no pricing sales or schemes that have become the rule rather than the exception on the App Store lately. And for another thing, it had a comparable competitor in Tap Tap Revenge 3, selling for just 99 cents. TTR3 is a hit as well -- it's topping the list of paid apps that Rock Band is on -- but many people figured consumers would pass on the $10 app for the 99 cent one, and many people were wrong.

In short, even though, yes, Rock Band has EA's power behind it and it's based on an already popular game, it actually has bucked what we've seen so far: prices racing to the bottom, and tough chances of making a hit game, much less a profitable one, at the $9.99 price point. We don't yet know whether the game is profitable (or how either Rock Band's or TTR3's microtransaction models will do in the future), as it's just too soon.

But Rock Band is already seen as a game that stands as a shining example of what many were thinking wasn't true: big publishers with big name titles can put out big games at (relatively -- $10 is still cheap when you're talking about Rock Band at large) high price points and see them sell.

Shazam is one of the first apps I actually used in context on the iPhone, and while we haven't heard much about the app since it debuted way back in the early days of the App Store, apparently the company itself has been blowing up, thanks to the free app. They've picked up a nice round of investment from venture capitalists, and the service itself now boasts over 50 million users (by comparison, Last.fm claims only 30 million, but they've gotten way more press than Shazam's service, including recent integration on Xbox Live). That's a heck of an achievement, and Apple is a huge part of it -- not only did Shazam make a big splash on their iPhone app, but they say that Apple actually helped connect the VCs and the company together. That's an interesting peek behind the scenes at what Apple is doing for one of the App Store's oldest and most popular free apps.

As for why Shazam is so popular, the VCs say they can see the platform as a "springboard" for selling music, advertising, and a few other commodities. Currently Shazam's free app only lets you tag five songs a month (a limit I never hit and thus didn't know about, even though I would say that I do use the app regularly), but they're planning a paid version that will allow unlimited identification of songs through the iPhone's microphone. I don't know how well that will sell (it's hard to believe that people will pay $5 for a service they are already using for free, though perhaps I'm underestimating the amount of music that people want to "tag"), but it's clear that Shazam is a company that is making the absolute best of having an extremely popular free app on the App Store.

The good news is that EA has released Rock Band for the iPhone and iPod touch, and you can pick it up from the App Store right now. The bad news is that it seems like a pretty tough sell -- despite the relatively high price tag (Tap Tap Revenge 3, a similar music game, is currently 99 cents and headed for free), there's not much new here.

Sure, there is four-device Bluetooth multiplayer, and that's something that Tapulous' game has never had. But other than that, it seems like this is basically EA's cash in on the tapping concept -- the draw of Rock Band has been getting together with your friends and jamming out the hits on those fake instruments, and touching a button-less screen by yourself doesn't have the same effect. Singing is included, but you're still just tapping out notes for that -- it seems like they missed a lot of potential fun there. And even some of the fun things from the console version like the drum fills for overdrive and the character avatars are missing here.

If you don't like the 20 songs included with the game, you can download others at 50 cents (in two-song packs for a buck each), but most people probably shouldn't even bother at that price -- just stick with Tapulous' game unless you really love Rock Band and its aesthetics (even then, I haven't seen my much-beloved Harmonix mentioned anywhere with this port, so I doubt they're even involved. Update: They are listed on the game's splash screen, however, according to our readers).

Even if you want to try this one, wait for the inevitable price drop -- if the game really lived up to its name as the premiere music experience you'll find on the consoles, it might be worth it, but all indications are, unfortunately, that it doesn't.

It's been just over a year since we officially noticed that Apple was pushing towards gaming on the iPod touch, and while their advertising hasn't stopped pushing, the actual push hasn't quite gotten to a shove. If you look at this holiday season, certainly the iPod touch is a popular device, butt kids are still asking for the PSP Go and the Nintendo DSi, handheld units meant specifically for gaming. If Apple wants to trounce gaming the same way they've trounced the smartphone market with the iPhone, they've got a long road to travel.

But don't count them out yet, says analyst Michael Pachter -- he says the iPod touch is the "most dangerous thing that ever happened to the [major video game] publishers, ever." Apple's main handheld gaming device is $200 this Christmas, but he says next year it'll be $149, and the year after that, maybe $129. When, in the future, you can put down $99 and walk away with an iPod touch, says Pachter, then "every nine year old kid is going to have one of those instead of a DS or a PSP, and if you train kids that this is the game that you want to play... How about Tetris? Why would you pay USD 20 for Tetris when you can get it for USD 6.99 or USD 3.99 on iPod touch?"

Interesting point. It's true that console manufacturers have been hesitant to lower prices on their products (in fact, Sony's latest version of the PSP actually had a price increase), while Apple seems committed to pushing the prices on iPods ever cheaper. And yes, as long as companies keep releasing the same games on both devices for $30 on the DS and less than $10 on the App Store (and why shouldn't they -- no packaging, no distribution costs), people will go for the cheaper one. I don't expect to see the iPod touch as a huge winner this year (as a gaming competitor, I mean -- of course it'll sell by the truckloads), but Pachter seems right: wait until the prices drop, and the iPod touch might have traditional gaming devices shaking in their D-pads.

TUAW is participating in this year's Blog Action Day on 10/15, an annual event in which bloggers around the world aim to spark discussion and awareness of serious and important issues. This year's topic is climate change, and fortunately, just like last year, we in the Apple community are in a pretty good place -- the company makes it a point to stay as green as possible, they have Al Gore on their board, and they make it safe and easy to dispose of their products in an environmentally friendly way. But there's always more we can do, from person to person -- making the earth a better place to live is going to take all of us working together.

And so, here's five iPhone and iPod touch apps you can use to find out what you can do to take action on climate change. Some are paid, some are free, but all of them will give you fun and useful ways to help find approaches to dealing with climate change in your own behavior and life.

I like the way Schiau Studios thinks -- when customers complained about the price of their $2.99US App Store game Alchemize, they raised the price up to $39.99. Over on the TouchArcade forums, they make their case: most devs, they say, when faced with complaints about price, will just lower their price even though their software is already cheap. So they wanted to buck the trend, and instead raised it up to almost $40 (which, incidentally, is slightly more than what you might pay for a handheld console game).

Lest you simply complain that they were greedy, they say they were only out to make a point: everyone who purchased the game at the higher price point will have all of their money go to charity, and now that the game's back at the $2.99 price point, 33% of all the profits to be gained will go to the same charity. Regardless of whether the game's any good or not, we like their thinking.

Can we all agree to stop griping about price points? I've actually heard this come up lately on a comedy podcast of all places -- when Chicago broadcasting legend Steve Dahl (and one of my favorites) started up a podcast about a month ago, and introduced an app to go along with it. Steve was inundated with comments complaining about the $2.99 price, which he responded to with a great argument on the show: he's put a lot of money into the app and the show behind it, and if you're already a fan of his, paying less than the cost of a cup of Starbucks should not even be an issue.

Sure, when the App Store first started up, it was the Wild West -- both prices and quality were all over the place. But at this point, Apple's review system has more or less settled down, and blogs like ours are full of recommendations, with enough free apps to last any rabid app user most of their iPhone time. If you have any interest in an app at all, a couple of bucks shouldn't be enough to give you pause -- either pick it up and make sure the dev gets their due (small as that may be), or move on to find an app you'd rather buy.

If you look under your seats, you'll find a bevy of free iPhone apps. That's right ... you get an app, you get an app, everybody gets an app (or 16)!

We've mentioned Chilli X a few times, and I've developed a fondness for their collection of sleek, simple iPhone apps with great-looking interfaces. And now it's their first birthday, and they're giving out presents: this weekend only (starting right now), you can grab any (or all) of Chilli X's iPhone apps for FREE.

There are plenty to choose from; 16 apps in the App Store and one just submitted for approval today. We've mentioned Done [iTunes link], MyCal [iTunes link] and Playlist Alarm Clock [iTunes link], but much has happened since then. What follows is a roundup of some of the latest apps, but you can find them all by searching for "Chilli X" in the App Store.