The piracy of iPhone games has long been one of those subjects not mentioned in formal interviews but hotly discussed in the bar afterwards.

The situation came to a head recently however when ngmoco's Alan Yu was reported at GDC China as saying the iPhone publisher's games were experiencing piracy rates of between 50 to 90 percent.

Significantly then, when announcing the lifting of restrictions allowing developers to charge for micro-transactions in free games, Apple specifically highlighted how this could impact on piracy.

Its information note read:

"Using In App Purchase in your app can also help combat some of the problems of software piracy by allowing you to verify In App Purchases."

Confession and path to salvation in the same short sentence then.