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ONLINE REVOLUTIONARY:TWENTY-YEAR-OLD Dublin student Steven Troughton-Smith is Ireland's most successful developer of iPhone apps. If sales of his games and utilities continue at the pace they were at in late January, Troughton-Smith is on course to earn about €9,000 a month - after Apple takes its one-third cut. Not bad for someone who is halfway through his first year of a Digital Media Engineering course at Dublin City University.

A confirmed fan of all things Apple, the young developer has been creating software for the iPhone since its release. Originally, software could only be installed on phones that had been "jailbroken" - hacked with software that exposes their inner workings. Last June, when Apple announced a formal programme to allow third parties to write their own software and sell it through iTunes, he signed up straight away.