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One of the great things about the App Store is how it’s leveled the game development playing field: for the first time since the late 80s, a single developer coding in his bedroom can be competitive both graphically and presentationally with larger developers.

Case in point: Brainphant’s Vertigo Rogue, an action game that literally came out of nowhere and is to helicopters what Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars was to cars. Not only does it feature intuitive controls, a huge, detailed 3D city and frenetic blow-em-all-up action, but Brainphant even programmed in stereoscopic 3D glasses support. You know, like James Cameron used.

At $4.99, Brainphant’s Vertigo Rogue is looking like a strong contender for my weekend time sink. If you need more convincing, check out Touch Arcade’s spot-on review.

Leander seems to think the iPad Keyboard Dock is a no-duh-brainer for real iPad typing, but at $69.00, it’s a luxury accessory when most of us already have Apple’s own bluetooth aluminum chiclet keyboard on our desks (in my case, collecting tobacco detritus).

After all, if you already have a keyboard that will work with the iPad, the keyboard dock’s really just a stand… and New York Times’ Multimedia Editor Andrew Devigal found out that the cheapest stand solution out there for the iPad isn’t 69 dollars, but 69 cents: namely, a business card holder from Office Depot.

Of course, the dock also charges and syncs your iPad, so if you want to go with this solution you’ll need to resign yourself to losing the ability to type on the iPad when its in a vertical position when the syncing cable is attached. (Edit: No, you won’t! As Bryan points out in the comments, you can just turn your iPad upside down and it’ll automatically re-orient itself. D’oh!) You’ll also sacrifice some of the function keys’. Still, who said frugality never meant some sacrifices?

I think I speak for many Europeans when I say that Apple’s promise of a late April international iPad launch elicited a small incredulous groan. Coming just a few weeks after the US April 3rd ship date made it appear like Apple’s international launch date was flexible according to the supply demands of US consumers. With the iPad likely to be a smash success just based on Apple’s previous iDevice home runs, I didn’t put a lot of stock in Apple’s late April promise, no matter how earnestly they seemed to mean it. The US market would come first.

Looks like I was right to be cautious: Apple has sent out a press release this morning explaining that because of strong domestic sales of the iPad, they are delaying international delivery by a month to late May.

A new survey shines more light on just who is buying Apple’s iPad. The survey, by Morgan Stanley, found 4.6 percent of Americans asked said they were “extremely interested” in buying an iPad, with 16.4 percent “somewhat interested” in the tablet device.

The survey of 2,500 U.S. consumers indicates 4-5 million iPads could sell in the U.S. over the first year, or 7-9 million globally, analyst Katy Huberty told investors Wednesday.

The weirdest thing about using Apple’s iPad Keyboard Dock is that you are constantly reaching for a mouse — a mouse that isn’t there, of course. The iPad doesn’t support mice. Instead, you should be tapping and swiping the screen.

Using the keyboard to work with the iPad takes you out of the multitouch mode and puts you back in mouse/keyboard mode. And while you can use the keyboard in a limited way to navigate the iPad, you can’t use many of the desktop shortcuts you’ve learned over the years, like Command-Tab to switch apps.

So using an iPad with a keyboard takes a little getting used to, but the $69 iPad Keyboard Dock is a very handy accessory, with a couple of caveats.

Most people on this planet do something in order to live. Some catch bad guys, some heal — others yet write pithy reviews about tiny games.

A relatively new game has another suggestion, by dint of its title: “Tilt To Live.” If you do wind up with this little $2 gem in your hot hands, though, you’ll find it usurps any other activity you might have been engaged with in order to live.

Steve Jobs has sent another of his off-the-cuff customer emails, this time about the not-so-fast chip in the new 13-inch MacBook Pro.

Some observers are complaining that the 13-inch MacBook still sports a rather lowly Core 2 Duo chip, which also powered the previous generation machine. Meanwhile, the 15-inch and 17-inch MacBooks got speedy Intel Core i5 and i7 processors.

One MacRumors reader sent Steve Jobs a note about it, who responded that Apple chose to offer better graphics and battery life rather than an increase in CPU performance.

Lengthily discussing Apple’s heroic focus on iPhone OS 4.0 for the past few month’s, Daring Fireball says not to expect the next version of Apple’s other operating system until at least 2011.

Gruber writes:

A few months ago, I heard suggestions that Apple had tentative plans to release a developer beta of Mac OS X 10.7 at WWDC this June. That is no longer the case. Mac OS X 10.7 development continues, but with a reduced team and an unknown schedule. It’s my educated guess that there will be no 10.7 news at WWDC this year, and probably none until WWDC 2011.

Frankly, this doesn’t concern me too much. Snow Leopard was a solid effort that deep cleaned and tightened the bolts on an already excellent operating system. Short of the addition of multitouch or the addition of deeper integration with the iPhone OS, I’m hard pressed to think of any new features I would really like to see in OS X… although knowing Apple, they’ve thought of some I have not.

Either way, even in 2011, OS X 10.7 won’t be overdue: Snow Leopard’s barely been out for eight months, and it took thirty months to see Tiger transition to Leopard. The real question is whether or not the proud and noble Bornean Clouded Leopard (pictured) can gain enough support in the next two years to get the nod as 10.7 spirit cat.

As we reported eariler the Apple Store was closed this morning when I went for my ‘O-Dark-Thirty’ run, and as anticipated, we’ve got new i5 and i7 Macbook Pros to enjoy. I will be picking one up today if possible and will give a full rundown later in the week for an in-depth hands on.

Pricing looks great too, with $200 off the 17″ model. The 17″ configured as I’d buy it with an i7, is just $200 more (or in other words back to the original pricing).

No updates today for Macbook Air, or Macbook Pro… Which is good ’cause I don’t think I could justify to even my generious and understanding wife, upgrading two three thousand dollar machines at once!

Beautiful. Thanks Steve.

Check back here this weekend for a deep-dive hands on.