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 am back in Beijing for a business trip and will try to take some pictures that are hopefully unique. Today it was overcast and raining intermittently, so I left my camera in the hotel, expecting that I will have better weather soon. I saw some great things, though, and regretted not having my camera with me after all. One was a new shoe shop in the Sanlitun area that was filled with people still at 9pm on a Sunday. The shop's neon name sign read: "C.P.U." In China you never know if such names are used on purpose or by accident.

Not far away was the white Apple logo, standing above China's first Apple store and completely dominating the shopping center skyline. The store was also still well frequented at this time, and the Apple people were actively selling with presentations on large LCD monitors to young and old, presumably explaining how much better the kids will be able to study with a MacBook and relax with an iPod.

The bars were empty, though. as you would expect on a Sunday evening, although of course I bet this was different during the Olympics. Maybe they were also busier earlier in the year: my not very representative survey talking to people shows that people are fully aware of the stock market crash and expecting that China, too, will be hit economically. Many people seem to have stayed in the market and have now lost big (one woman told me she bought China Oil for 15k RMB and it is now only worth 5k). Pessimistic people commenting on the Internet expect that it will take tens of years to recover; I bet it will be much much shorter.

One other interesting thing I noticed in a cab was a touch LCD monitor built into the rear of the front seat showing all kinds of ads. It was possible to turn off the audio, so it seemed fair enough. The text was in Mandarin only. Googling around a bit I found whose project this was: General Electric did it in 1000 Beijing cabs for the Olympics. Also interesting to read how social networking, blogging, all sorts of viral marketing ideas and much more was taken into consideration in the biggest ever online media blitz during these past Olympics.

Lastly, I was already able to make great use of an iPhone app called Beijing Taxi Guide. It is from the www.thebeijinger.com and let's you find most of the hotels, sights, restaurants etc. The guide provides you with the place's address, phone number and something even better: a full-screen Chinese character description of where to find it. Since the Beijing taxi drivers don't speak English and often have problems understanding foreigners, this works great (mostly, at least: one taxi driver could still not find the place, which was more his problem than the iPhone guide I think. At least I managed to call the number quickly and they could direct us nicely. And it looks like even better Beijing guides with maps are on the way, but of course the one who came out first has an advantage: time to market(ing) is key for online marketing. I was impressed: this was a really good example of how to digitally promote your business through location-based services.

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...