To the iPhone’s extensive resume, add magazine cover illustration. Artist Jorge Colombo recently drew widespread attention for creating the image for The New Yorker’s June 1 cover on an iPhone using Brushes, a $3.99 mobile application. Brushes was designed by Steve Sprang, a 32-year-old programmer who lives in Mountain View, Calif. Brushes simulates the experience of painting on the iPhone screen. Users select from a set of brushes and paint colors using their fingers directly on the screen. It is an application that he wanted to use himself: “I like computer graphics and I like creative tools, so Brushes was definitely an app that I wanted to use myself,” Sprang wrote in an e-mail. “I expected it to appeal to others as well. I think a painting app is a natural fit for the iPhone.” He was right about that. More than 50,000 iPhone owners have downloaded it from Apple’s iTunes Store since Sprang released it in August

2008, and the pace quickened with publicity from The New Yorker cover. Under Apple’s rules, Sprang gets $2.80, or 70 percent, of each purchase, meaning Brushes has earned him about $140,000 before taxes. Apple Leads the Way There is, as Sprang’s experience proves, money to be made selling software applications for the iPhone and other wireless devices. Apple’s iTunes Store has led the way, providing the official channel for software that runs not only on the 21.2 million iPhones it has sold, but also an additional 16 million iPod Touch devices. In less than a year of sales, Apple has reported more than a billion downloads overall. Some apps are free, while many cost 99 percent to $9.99 — and higher. The most expensive iPhone app, IraPro, at $899.99, is a remote surveillance controller for businesses. And while Apple has led the way by distributing applications it…

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Mobile Apps’ Brush With Greatness