Just yesterday I was complaining about how Apple (AAPL) sometimes treats its customers as if they were stupid.

I had no idea how right I was.

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If iPhone app developers have one complaint about Apple’s (AAPL) App Store, it’s that the approval process for apps isn’t transparent enough. Apps have been known to be rejected, or worse, sent into a black hole without an explanation.

Some apps that one might think would be rejected are approved, while others that seem like no-brainers aren’t.

While the Cupertino, Calif., company has made some improvements, such as speeding up the approval process, it’s clear to developers Jon Myers and Chuck Hootman that Apple continues to work in mysterious ways–though they’re not complaining this time.

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Apple Inc. (AAPL) said Thursday it will let iPhone application developers offer their users the option to buy additional content or features within a free app on its App Store.

App developers said they received an e-mail notice from Apple informing them that the in-app purchase feature was now available for free apps and that it would “simplify your development by creating a single version of your app that uses in App Purchase to unlock additional functionality, eliminating the need to create Lite versions of your app.” A spokeswoman for Apple confirmed the news.

The in-app purchase feature, which was first introduced in March, allows developers to offer fresh content for purchase within an app such as new levels in a game, additional books in an e-book app, or expanded capability in productivity apps.

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When Jon Myers and partner Chuck Hootman created their first iPhone app, “Cornhole All-Stars,” their aim was to come up with a fun, casual game that would give them a foothold for their new game start-up JUFTi. The last thing they expected was to run into censorship troubles, which they did–in Canada.

Cornhole, also known as Bags or Baggo, is a popular game in some circles where players toss a bag–-traditionally filled with corn kernels–-into a round hole on a slanted board about 30 feet away. Myers’s iPhone app is a virtual version of the game, featuring cute animated characters in various settings.

Though the app was published on Apple’s (AAPL) App Store worldwide on August 1, the Canadian App Store would only list it as “C******e All-Stars.”

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Apple (AAPL) routinely touts the number of applications people have downloaded from the App Store, but it doesn’t say how much money it makes from the online clearinghouse for iPhone and iPod touch software. Bernstein Research has taken a whack at estimating App Store sales and, while the dollars are mere crumbs to Apple, they are growing quickly.

In a research report published Thursday, Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi estimates the App Store currently brings in $60 million to $110 million in quarterly revenue for Apple, figures that sound big until they are measured against Apple’s revenue last quarter of $8.34 billion. That’s just over one percent of total Apple revenue, if we use the high end of Sacconaghi’s App Store revenue estimate.

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RealNetworks (RNWK) shares have spiked more than 10 percent this morning, on zero news.

TheStreet.com notes that there has been “heavy upside options activity” in the shares, asserting that “volume was nothing short of explosive” in both the stock and the options.

The last time the stock had a big move, the company won approval from Apple (AAPL) to offer an application for accessing Real’s Rhapsody music subscription service on the iPhone/iPod app store.

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As iPod sales ease, the company is focusing more and more on software–to the dismay of the record labels

Right after unveiling new iPods and iTunes software at an event on Sept. 9, Apple (AAPL) Chief Executive Steve Jobs invited singer Norah Jones on stage to perform for the assembled tech and media pundits. “Like you, we love music,” he told the crowd. “That’s probably the primary reason we do this.”

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On Tuesday, Vivek Kundra, the federal chief information officer, unveiled Apps.Gov, a Web site where federal agencies will able to buy so-called cloud computing applications and services that have been approved by the government to replace more costly and cumbersome computing services at their own locations.

The push to promote cloud computing is part of the Obama administration’s effort to modernize the government’s information technology systems and to help reduce the $75 billion annual budget for federal I.T. in the process.

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So here’s the thing about the smartphone market: there are way too many of them.

The year 2010, JMP Securities analyst Samuel Wilson asserted in a report this morning, “should be the year of the shakeout in smartphones.” He believes most of the market share and carrier focus will consolidate around three vendors. His view is that two of the winners “have effectively already been chosen.” In that group he includes Research In Motion (RIMM), “already a leader with its strong market presence” with a focus on the enterprise, and Apple (AAPL), driven by the App Store, iTunes and a strong Web browser.

So who will take the third slot?

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If I were to tell you that Apple’s (AAPL) app economy was worth more than $2.5 $2.4 billion a year, you would laugh hysterically, shake your head and walk out of the room, yes? Surf on over to some other web site? But here I am telling you exactly that!

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Here’s a question the FCC neglected to ask Apple (AAPL) in its inquiry into why the company rejected–or as Apple prefers, declined to approve–Google (GOOG) Voice:

Why has a free app that does essentially the same thing–and would seem to raise the same red flags for Apple–been sitting on the App Store for nearly 10 months?

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It’s just what it says: an animated rear end on the screen that gyrates when you shake your phone.

But what’s caught the eye of hundreds of Apple (AAPL) users and bloggers is not the woman’s rear end pictured on the iPhone screen–it’s that the app, which went on sale a week ago, was approved in the first place.

“If this app doesn’t prove that the entire Apple app approval process is arbitrary and stupid, I’m not sure what does,” wrote iPhone Buzz. “Seriously? We really need an app for that?” Heather Lytle asked in a tweet.

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Tuesday’s piece on Ninjawords was really about two stories. The small story is that of a clever $2 iPhone dictionary app, the developers of which removed “objectionable” words from its dictionary so as to get it published in the App Store. The big story is about the App Store itself, and whether Apple’s (AAPL) management is attempting to correct its course.

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