iPhone Apps Store Round Up: I Am Rich Gets The Boot, So Does PhoneSaber

Apple decided that an application that costs $1,000 and does nothing is not good. It yanked the application, but not before eight dimwits paid for it! Also gone, however, is my favorite, useless application from the Apps Store: The PhoneSaber.I am not surprised that Apple canned the I Am Rich application. I am surprised that eight people were dumb enough to pay the $999.99 price tag to get it. All I Am Rich did was put a picture of a floating ruby on the center of the iPhone's screen. How the "application" was approved in the first place is a mystery, but it's gone now.

The author of the application, Armin Heinrich, told the L.A. Times, "I have no idea why they did it and am not aware of any violation of the rules to sell software on the App Store." Uh, get real, buddy.

Now that we've said sayonara to I Am Rich, we need to mourn the loss of PhoneSaber.

PhoneSaber was probably just as useless as I Am Rich, but at least it was fun ... and free. The application turned your iPhone into a faux lightsaber, sort of. In the center of the screen was the hilt of a lightsaber, with several colors along the left side of the screen. Pressing one of the colors turned the lightsaber on, with full Star Wars sound effects, while using the iPhone's accelerometer as you wielded your iPhone let you pretend that you were taking part in a mighty lightsaber duel, with all the sound effects.

Dumb? Yes. Fun? Yes. Gone? Yes.

The application wasn't sanctioned by LucasArts, which demanded that the application be pulled. Hopefully LucasArts is working on its own version.