EA premieres a Daily Deals page for the holidays, and other ways to find cheap apps

So now that we're rolling into December, we're about to enter into the biggest season of the year for both app buying and app sales. Right before Christmas, Apple will "freeze" the App Store, which means listings won't get updated, and developers won't be able to change prices or release new apps, so iOS devs and publishers are working overtime right now to make sure everything is ready for the holiday. To that end, here's a few tools to help you find deals as quickly as possible. As always, we'll be reporting on as many deals as we can here on TUAW, and for up-to-the-moment discounts, you can also follow our Twitter account at @TUAW.

But there are other ways to find big app price drops. EA has made it easy for its apps -- the company has put together a "Daily Deals" page that will highlight free and discounted apps that show up in the company's catalog. Right now, for example, Shift 2 Unleashed and The Sims Medieval are both completely free, and there are a few other apps that are discounted in price.

Another nice tool for finding free apps is AppShopper's discounted apps page -- that will show you all apps that have seen a price drop recently. Unfortunately, that includes both apps worth your time and apps that aren't so much, so you can also check AppShopper's "popular" price drop page to thin the herd a bit. For example, I see there that Zen Bound 2 and Street Fighter 2 Collection are both on sale for 99 cents, both great apps at that price.

Again, if you want the complete story, you can stay tuned here to TUAW -- whenever there's a big wave of sales, we'll definitely find the hits and let you know when there's something good to buy for cheap. But if you want to do a little cheap app hunting yourself, there you go.