We covered Jason Rohrer's Primrose when it first came out -- the creator of Passage, a critically-acclaimed indie game, had taken his first steps onto the iPhone with an abstract puzzle game, and in this latest interview with Edge, Rohrer says he's on the iPhone to stay. He says that when he first moved from strictly art/indie games to more commercial development on the iPhone, he worried that he was selling out: he wasn't a fan of cell phones at all or any Chinese-made gadgets sold by American companies, and yet the iPhone's platform seemed most "palatable" to him in terms of making games and a little money from them.

And yet he says the iPhone still has pros and cons -- even in an "open source, free software" world, Apple's system offers a choice: you can buy a packaged-up version of the software and throw a little money back to the developer (not a ton -- he says you've still got a better chance at making a living from Vegas than you do from the App Store), or you can still try building and installing your own version on your iPhone. As an open-source developer selling apps on the App Store, he says, "you're charging for the service and convenience, not the content."

Still, he echoes the sentiments of lots of other developers: "There is no quality filter, except for the whims of the masses." Apple's App Store offers up an intriguing system for many indie developers like Rohrer, who want to earn a little money for their games without setting up all of the complexity and burdens of a more traditional publishing channel, but it's still tough to keep from getting lost in the mix.

With iPhone OS 3.0 only having been released yesterday, two big companies are already angling to be developers' go-to for setting up push notifications and other online services for the new apps. OpenFeint was the first service we've heard about -- they have been offering social networking connections to developers for a while, but with the new firmware release, they tell us that they're also hosting options for both push notifications and microtransactions to their stable of app developers.

That stable includes apps like Pocket God and Aurora Feint (Danielle Cassley of both Aurora Feint and OpenFeint told us a while back that she was very excited at the prospect of microtransactions with 3.0), and both of those games, as well as others on the service, are planning to include push notifications with "social challenges" -- you'll challenge a friend to complete a certain goal in game, and then get notified when they meet that goal. Look for those new features in an OpenFeint app near you.

And OpenFeint isn't the only service jockeying for developers' attention -- Urban Airship is also making a bid to host push notifications for iPhone game developers. They've landed one of the first push-enabled games, Tap Tap Revenge, and are looking to offer push to more devs, along with in-app purchase support as well. They don't quite have the library together that OpenFeint already does, but their service integrates, they say, in just a matter of hours, and their aim is to make it "brain dead easy" for developers.

The floodgates are open, and we're sure to see more and more companies jump in on hosting plans like this in the future. Prepare to be pushed.

You'll probably see these as soon as you try to update an app or make a new purchase (along with a "This content may not be appropriate for children under 17" warning for some apps). We haven't gone through all the new terms with a fine-tooth comb yet, but it is important to note the following:

items purchased IN an app (like new levels, dresses for virtual dogs, map packs, etc.) may not transfer among devices; our developer friends tell us they are absolutely supposed to transfer, but the effort to make that work is on the individual developer and Apple is simply doing a CYA here in the terms. If you have 2 iPhones with the same iTunes account, you can have the same app on both devices -- but you won't be able to reuse anything purchased in one instance of the app onto the other iPhone, nor are you guaranteed to be able to get all your In App content back if you replace your iPhone.

Also, note that "The Application Provider is solely responsible for In App Purchases." So if Stinky the chihuahua's sweater never makes it into your device, you'll need to hit up the guys who wrote the app for some refund or re-download or... something. It's not 100% clear on how all that will work, since we have yet to get our grubby, unwashed masses' mitts on the system, but Apple is reportedly leaning hard on developers to make sure In App purchasing works as advertised -- while making sure we all acknowledge who's responsible if something goes awry.

If you notice other changes in the T&C, leave 'em in the comments.

A new kind of App Store rejection is making the rounds in the iPhone World. It's not about violating the SDK. It's not about objectionable content. It's about Apple empowering its reviewers to reject software without providing any substantive reason or feedback. TUAW reader Kenneth Ballenegger received the following rejection notice for his iLaugh application.

This kind of rejection is a gamechanger. Devs have complained that Apple's review policies to date have been inconsistent and arbitrary, since it was relatively easy to compare rejections and demonstrate the multiple standards in play. This rejection shields Apple's internal processes even further. Instead of moving towards transparency and responding to developer concerns, Apple has pointed itself in the opposite direction.

Making this rejection sting more, the app already was in the App Store; this submission was a bug-fix update. The premium edition of the same app, submitted at the same time, was approved without issue. It seems that previous and current approvals for the same application would argue in favor of letting this version through, or at a minimum providing an explanation of what's wrong with this one. As Christina posted yesterday, developers aren't getting straight answers about App Store rejections, even at WWDC.

"Sole discretion" hides a lot of possible review errors, both subjective and accidental. It makes it harder than ever for smaller companies to appeal rejections and denies them a factual basis on which to evaluate whether their rejection was issued in error. It also gives a firm answer to those who have been hoping for a transparent ticketing system and a open appeal process. Apple isn't interested; it's their store, their rules, and Caveat Developer to anyone whose business plan depends solely on Apple's beneficence.

An app full of admittedly lame jokes might be an appropriate candidate for App Store rejection, but the combination of veto power, the opaque review/appeal process, and inconsistent and capricious application of Apple's ax adds up to a troublesome situation in the developer ecosystem and in the App Store.

Postscript: Kenneth writes in to clarify that the 1.1.1 bug-fix update submitted 3 months ago was rejected. This will not affect his 2.0 Lite version, which was just submitted.

It's a point of pride for the developers and a highlight of WWDC week -- tonight, courtesy of Jim Dalrymple at The Loop, we congratulate the winners of the Apple Design Awards for 2009. The list includes several TUAW favorites (Things, BoinxTV, Tweetie, Billings and MLB.com) along with some fantastic efforts from students.

The full winner list thanks to The Loop and Apple's ADA listings:

Update: Our bad... the date on the MacRumors comment was in late April, and this recycled up into our queue due to an editing mixup. Apologies –Ed.

There's a new iTunes beta version out in developers' hands straight from Apple, and a forum poster over at Mac Rumors found a little something fun in the About screen: a reference to Gracenote's ability to identify Blu-ray discs. Gracenote is the service that IDs your CDs when you import them into iTunes, so you don't have to sit there and type all the track names and artist information in. Apparently Apple is mentioning that not only CDs and DVDs, but also Blu-ray discs, will get information from Gracenote in the latest version of iTunes.

This doesn't mean that Apple will adapt Blu-ray as a standard (though it would probably be about time, don't you think?). But it should mean that the future version of iTunes will include Blu-ray support, so if you happen to have a Blu-ray drive hooked up to your Mac, you'll be able to read or play the discs via iTunes.

It could just mean that Apple has upgraded the Gracenote version in their app, however, and that they have no plans to actually use it -- the text in the About screen could just be a boilerplate cut-and-paste from some required Gracenote documentation that happens to include "Blu-ray." We'll have to wait and see just what shows up in 8.2 when it eventually releases to the public.

The Wall Street Journal's Digits blog takes a look at "crap apps" -- those pieces of junk on the App Store that do one thing and do it pointlessly, whether that thing be farting or belching or making the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard (yes, really) or what have you. And they come up with a very intriguing, albeit obvious, reason that the App Store seems so filled with completely terrible and silly apps. Why? Because they sell.

Yes, even "legitimate" iPhone developers -- those people working hard to create an innovative touchscreen interface, or bring some crucial functionality to the iPhone -- are finding that of all the apps they release, the crudest and most stupid are the ones that sell. They profile a guy whose serious movie apps aren't selling, but whose cobbled-together-in-five-minutes gimmick apps are making a mint. In short, the reason our App Store is full of way more fart apps than apps like Twitterific 2.0 is because people are paying for the fart ones. The message we're sending with our wallets is that if you want to make a million dollars on the App Store, don't toil away to polish your groundbreaking award-winning puzzle game. Just give us a gag we can show to our friends.

Is it right? I'd say no, but then again, even I have been pulled in to a gimmick app or two: I bought Cat Piano (in my defense, I've gotten enough entertainment out of it to find an easter egg: shake your iPhone while playing). But next time your finger is poised over the "Get App" button on that 99-cent belching app that you just know the friend you're seeing later will get a total kick out of, think to yourself: is that two-second gag worth an App Store full of crappy apps?

Booyah is a company put together by former Blizzard devs (makers of classic games like World of Warcraft and Diablo) and funded by the iFund, and they've been keeping fairly mum on what they've been up to. Until now, that is -- they've updated their website and dropped a press release, and it looks like they're working on some iPhone software. What kind of software, exactly? Well, we're not quite sure -- it sounds like a game, because there's playing involved, but they're also using phrases like "life companion" and "social experiment," which makes it sound like a social networking app with some sort of game or virtual pet mechanics involved. And they are also hinting at a larger pattern of charity or cause-based action -- they told Kotaku that they want to tap into people's "life passions," and Gamasutra was told that the app itself is a "kernel miniproduct" that they plan to expand into a larger movement.

Blizzard's own Rob Pardo is an advisor to the team (and the product was originally pitched to Blizzard), but really that's the only clue here that this is anything more than startup hype -- we've seen social networks flash and fizzle already on the iPhone, and even game-based social networking tools like Foursquare haven't really found their tipping point yet.

But we won't judge fully before we've seen it -- Booyah says they'll be showing their cards "this spring" (so before June 21st?). We'll be watching.

According to my completely unscientific research, about 90% of the TUAW mailbag is comprised of iPhone app announcements. In our continuing effort to not deluge you with iPhone app reviews, I present another "fistful of apps": 6 iPhone app reviews in one post. If you don't have an iPhone, you only have to skip one post. For the rest, this is some serious bang for your blog-reading buck.

I don't play games much, aside from the occasional word challenge, so the apps I've chosen to review are definitely of a more utilitarian ilk. I'd classify them as productivity apps, including a Campfire client, a 3D mind mapping app, a movie cataloger, a task-management solution, a multi-status updater and a nifty tool for developing iPhone interfaces. Read on for the nitty gritty.

Former TUAW blogger Erica Sadun has a cautionary post for developers regarding the pending push notifications coming to iPhone OS 3.0: better get yourself some reliable servers. The implication, delivered via headline, is that smaller developers won't be able to afford push notification. Indeed, as Erica says, coding for an app that can run in the background is one thing -- you may need to scale things down a bit for resource management -- but deploying a reliable push notification system is a tall order by comparison.

Instead of coding once and deploying, developers will now have to manage servers to handle the load of users who will be receiving push notifications. This ongoing server maintenance issue is the sort of thing we used to laugh about when digg first started, or Twitter, or MySpace, or any number of services that grew a little ahead of server capacity. After speaking to one of the network engineers at Twitter during SxSW this year, I don't envy the task of staying ahead of these curves. But push, in my opinion, isn't as onerous as that.

Push notifications aren't serving entire pages. The difference in data throughput overall is much slimmer than even the light pages Twitter serves. Erica correctly points out that in aggregate, the push server might be hit pretty frequently; however, and there's more of a concern with reliability for a finance or medical app than something like Twitter or digg. But even when you throw in the added hurdle of security I'm guessing the resources for this are available at a reasonable cost.

I get that this is more work for developers, but Erica makes it sound a little threatening, like developers' only resolution will be to cobble together a mighty datacenter from spare computer parts. My assertion is that developers who wish to play the push game will simply need to look for outside resources and factor that into their price. Maybe fewer $.99 apps is a good thing? You certainly don't need 30 apps trying to alert you during the day -- how would you get anything done?

In the end, push notifications are welcome, and I'd rather have that than a one-hour battery life for the day. Plus, I would agree that some smaller developers will have to forget push because the potential costs are too high. Guess what? That's as it should be. If your product requires it, your cost should reflect it. There's no shortage of service providers out there, and as we've seen in the past (look at the podcast services that popped up when that blew up a few years ago) the market will fill the needs of the developers if they aren't in the business of making their own server farms. It's certainly a new twist to the iPhone dev game, and it's an opportunity for someone who can deliver a reliable push framework at a reasonable price -- perhaps one running atop Amazon's EC2, Google's App Engine or even Microsoft's Azure cloud service.

Mobclix has been providing an impressive amount of usage information to iPhone developers for only about six months now, but have already made it into the 2008 TechCrunch 50, won SeedCamp 2008, and been recognized as a leading provider of metrics and analytics reporting. According to Mobclix, 75% of the applications in which the analytics are implemented have made the Top 100 Free App list. When TechCrunch reported on Mobclix shortly after they launched in September of 2008, it was noted that "more aggregate data would be welcome." Well, that wish has been granted.

Mobclix announced a major upgrade to their analytics and yield optimization advertising system for iPhone (and other mobile) app developers today.

For the end user, it may come across as a little scary. Beyond just standard usage statistics, developers can create unlimited metrics, gathering information on everything from favorite colors to what level you last conquered in their game. The data is all gathered anonymously, and your consent is required, so don't worry about Big Brother yet. The benefit to the average user of ad-supported iPhone applications is that highly targeted advertising may actually yield a connection between the user and a vendor in whom they'd actually be interested. Mobclix also provides an in-app comment system to directly connect users with developers, providing feedback which is exponentially more useful than App Store comments.

Our good friends at Joystiq recently spoke to id games' John Carmack (the man behind games like Quake and Doom, and fervent supporter of Mac gaming), and heard that id's new product, Quake Live, is headed to our OS just as soon as they can get it there.

Quake Live is a free, browser-based, multiplayer-only version of the popular first-person shooter, and it's Windows-only at the moment and packed -- I've tried to play, but have been locked out by thousands of people ahead of me in server queues. Even some of the developers at id are having issues. One of them (a Mac user, apparently) complains that even he has to jump into Boot Camp just to play his own game.

A little more significantly, Carmack says he recognizes that while there are lots of other choices for PC gamers, a game like Quake Live could make a much bigger splash on Mac and Linux, where there aren't as many other developers and titles grabbing for attention. We've heard that before -- while developers claim there's not a big enough base for them on OS X and Linux, the truth is that some of your best and most loyal customers will use Macs.

Good to see that Carmack recognizes there's an audience here who want to shoot each other online, too. Hopefully we'll see Quake Live running on our machines sooner rather than later.

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.

Update: It is worth mentioning that there are applications with a free, ad-supported version available and yet the premium version is still cracked. One such example is The Iconfactory's excellent Twitter client, "Twitterrific."

Let's say you are a developer and want to have a go at this whole "iPhone" platform. Let's also say that you lay out the money to register with Apple, spend about 250 hours to develop an addictive and entertaining game, and manage to get it approved for sale in the App Store.

If you have made it this far, as James and Constance Bossert of Fairlady Media have, then you probably would be excited to see a sudden spike in application usage... but according to a post at TorrentFreak, that was only the beginning of the Bosserts' problems. When usage shot up for their app "Whack 'em all" (iTunes link) without a corresponding increase in revenue, James went to work figuring out why. The bad news: his app had been cracked and was being distributed, for free, for use on jailbroken devices.