I’m a software pirate. Yup, that’s me.  I’m a bad guy, right?

I have a jailbroken iPhone, and I use appulo.us to download pirated apps.  I’ve downloaded dozens of pirated apps, and I don’t feel the least bit guilty.  As I write this article, there are only 2 pirated apps on my iPhone.  The others I’ve either paid for or deleted because they were terrible, or I didn’t use them.

Right now Apple is counting their way toward 1 billion apps downloaded from their app store, and a significant number of those are free apps.  But, of the paid apps, I’m willing to bet that most of those are not in use by their buyers for the same reasons I delete most of my pirated apps.

The app store thrives on the impulse-style marketing found at grocery store check-outs everywhere.  Most apps are only a buck or two, so most people don’t take the time to think about whether they really want or need that iFart Mobile app. They just buy it and delete it in a few days because they realize it’s crap (no pun).

When I download a pirated app, I do so for evaluation purposes…really, I do.  I’ll use if for a while and see if it suits my purpose.  If it doesn’t, I delete it.  If it does, I buy it.  Simple as that.  Too bad more people don’t operate that way.

Let me put this question to you:  Given my previous statement that most iPhone apps are purchased and never really used is true, does the developer lose out on revenue when his apps are pirated?  If his app wasn’t available to download as a pirated app, would it appear on as many iPhones?  I say no.  In fact I think that that developer probably sold more copies as a result.  And if not, then either the software provides no real value, or it doesn’t fit at its current price point.

As for the 2 pirated apps I have on my iPhone…I just bought one, and deleted another. I think that developers should get paid for their work, but I don’t want to buy crap, and I think a solution to appulo.us would be a 14 day trial system for apps that aren’t games.  That way I can make sure it fits my needs.

Well, I already upgraded from the iPod Touch to the iPhone.  I couldn’t help it.  I loved the online capabilities of the iPod Touch so much that I just had to get the iPhone.

The plans from Rogers are close to extortion, but when you’re the only game in town, I guess you can charge what you want.  I just went for the $60/mo 1 GB plan for now.  We’ll see how that goes.  Most of the time that I want to use the internet on the phone, I’m within range of a wireless network, so I’m pretty sure I can keep the useage to a reasonable level.

I’m having a lot of fun with the app store too.  I’m going to have to be careful not to spend a fortune two bucks at a time.  I’ve had lots of suggestions for apps through Twitter, but if there’s an app out there that you think is a must have, just leave a comment for me.

I’ve been meaning to change the ringtone on my RAZR for quite a while now from the 24 Ringtone, but I couldn’t find anything that I liked until I came across a copy of the Apple iPhone Ringtone.

Changing the ringtone took me half an hour because Telus decided that they only want you to be able to get ringtones from them. You can’t simply transfer the file through Bluetooth or USB. Oh, the file will get there just fine, and you can even play it with the media browser, but there is no option to use it as a ringtone.

The only way to get it to work is to use BitPim to delete the sound database files MyToneDB and TmpTneDB from the file structure and reboot the phone. These two files get rebuilt on boot, and then the sound file will show as available for use as a ringtone.

Anyway, feel free to download either of these two ringtones. If you need any help getting them on your Telus RAZR, let me know. I definitely didn’t post full instructions here.