Below a list of my currently favorite iPhone apps. There are so many iPhone apps out now that I have a hard time keeping up with all of them. In fact I am not keeping up with it. If you want a review of these apps check out AppVee. It seems the currently best review place that I have found at least. Some of their reviews I do not share though at all, so it is still worth checking out the apps by yourself and look for other reviews and opinions elsewhere. The lists below are in random order btw.
Worth noting is that practically all my cloud applications also have a mobile version now which I can add as bookmarks to the iPhone and they look like any other iPhone app; they have just to be launched through the bowser which happens automatically.

For Work:		For Fun:
Instapaper Evernote fring Stitcher Tube (London, Paris, ...) Newsstand Taxi Guide (Shanghai, Beijing...) DianHua WiFinder Holidays Flight Status AirportStatus Record SBB Timetable Google Google Earth LinkedIn iCurrency		Easy Pasta Recipes Shazam Wine Card TV Guide Word Bank (MyWords-Chinese) Flashcards (Chinese characters) Hanoi Cocktails Clubs 20Minuten Aero Weather WeatherEye Stanza iChillout FourFree Blanks

I doubt it. To me the idea of bringing an open mobile platform into the market to drive innovation is a honorable goal and deserves respect. Will it also rock the mobile phone market? No, I don't think so. For the exact same reasons why Linux has not taken over the Windows and Apple OS PC market, the new Google Android platform will appeal to the Unix freaks among us and be a nice cool platform to built your own applications, but won't attract the masses.

First of all Apple has stolen the show with its AppStore months ago and has shown with the iPhone what it takes to offer great usability. The Google Android phone lacks also behind other platforms like Symbian or Blackberry and I bet even behind Microsoft's Windows Mobile that most people hate. So what will happen to it? With Google behind it it will survive many years and depending on how much more Google will put into it remain valid as a platform for the Linux guys around. To make it a mass market success though Google should have better partnered with Apple's iPhone and bring its strength in Search and some Google apps such as maps to that platform. I think over time that will happen too but for now the Google boys have another great toy and will play with it and since they don't need to make money with it they will let them play for a long time to come.

If I would be a software developing company who wants to make money though this platform would not be interesting. Still there are many Linux folks out there who make things without the $ sign in front of them and they will like it I guess. I am sure Steve Jobs had a big smile in his face when he watched the announcement probably thinking that these guys don't get what it takes to enter the mass market with success over night.

As for me I will play around with the Google Android phone when I get a chance next time I am in a mobile phone store that carries it and I am sure will drop it quickly as I got used now to my iPhone and expect any similar device to offer me the same user experience or even better. By then the iPhone apps will be in the second generation which will widen the gap even more.

iPhone apps have catapulted the wireless mobile industry into a new millennium. Everyone will benefit: Apple of course, the app developers now having a platform to make good revenue quickly; the other wireless device vendors and developers as they now also have a path to tap into the market of the billions of mobile phone users, allowing them to profit, too, if they move fast.

• the neutral app recommendation site www.appvee.com contains lots of copied and neutral info on iPhone apps, plus reviews. This site helps with finding your applications.
• there are apps restricted to use in North America only: WeatherBug (temperature in Fahrenheit only), Pandora radio (does not run in Europe), AirportStatus (also keeps crashing on startup, latest: now it works!), NWA travel...
  
• my favorite apps right now are (a snapshot as things change daily):
• Evernote, great notebook that also has a website that lets you better organize and share your notes
• MProfs, nice short marketing tips and how to stories, with some good contributions in it
• SBB Timeplan, giving you fast access to the Swiss public transport timetables
• 20min, free Swiss news source, best are the available news videos, I think
• Bloomberg, this has proven to be the so far best stock market news and tracker application for me, its counterpart Swissquote lacks basic usability features, which is a shame, as otherwise they could be even better I think, so right now I'm still using Bloomberg
• WinWeinReb, a big database in German for wine grapes, after you key in the wine grape name you get infos about its major locations and also a description of its to be expected taste, a database that gives access to the wines itself would be a great extension, hope they do that for free then too
• AeroWeather. There are many other -- it seems great -- to-be-paid for tools for pilots available, but AeroWeather is for free and provides the latest reported weather at all major aiprorts worldwide, including METARs and TAFs in both raw and decoded versions: very nice tool!
• nice stuff for just playing around: Mandarin phrase book, Cocktails, Brain Tuner, Newtons Cradle, Blanks (new English words), PangeaVR (3D panoramas), Midomi and Shazam (recognize songs)
• more useful tools: Currency, ZIPcodes, Units, Translator, Cards, WeekNumber

More than 2000 applications are available already for the iPhone. My own favorite ones right now are:

• Salesforce Mobile, in case you use salesforce.com as a CRM tool, access is available with the iPhone now too
• Swissquote, leading Swiss online broker
• Currency, showing you the latest exchange rates
• 20min, nice online version of the popular free Swiss newspaper
• NetNewsWire, RSS reader providing me with the latest online news
• Bloomberg, news headlines and a quick overview of the world stock markets
• NYTimes, New York Times news, business articles and latest photos
• PangeaVR, great tool to see 360 degree panoramas, amazing what's technically possible already
• GottaGo, front end for all public transportation in Switzerland, great tool
• iOlympics, latest news, events, schedules, sports and country specific news
• ZIP codes, let's you find zip codes or towns and provides quick access to maps
• Labyrinth LE, my kids liked it!
• DizzyBeeFree, dito
• Shazam and midomi, in case I hear a song on the radio that I like and want to buy, I can identify it now within a few seconds...

Tomorrow the iPhone 3G will be launched but the real big news is the Apple AppStore that already contains 500 applications. Steve Jobs says it will be a new mobile platform and Microsoft, Nokia, Google and many others are for sure now getting even more nervous about what is happening in this market.

Comments from the US media: WSJ, NYT

Apple is trying to excite the mobile developer community and seems to be on an excellent track. According to Apple they don't want to make much money with mobile software (70% goes to the developers) but sell more iPhones. Also a $100 million venture fund for iPhone application development startups was launched by Kleiner Perkins Caufield one of the leading venture capital firms in Silicon Valley. Two more are underway, it is said.