With more than 550 applications across a wide range of genres already available—we're talking about everything from games to foreign language phrasebooks to dedicated social networking tools—the App Store is a boon for any iPhone user. With about a quarter of the applications available for free, there's no reason for any iPhone owner to not be excited. Even the paid applications are inexpensive and generally sell for $9.99 or less.

Although it took Apple a year to bring officially supported third-party apps to the iPhone, the results are worth the care and planning that went into the process. The App Store is easy to navigate, either with the iPhone or through iTunes, and it offers one-stop shopping. Users can even post reviews and comments to help guide would-be app users. Unlike other mobile platforms, with the iPhone you don't have to search for or browse various Web sites to buy an app—eliminating the confusion many novice users associate with finding applications for their devices. Nor are there any concerns about installation: simply buy or download the application and it installs itself, either directly when downloaded from the App Store to the iPhone or during a sync when downloaded through iTunes. And those applications are backed during the syncing process.

Equally obvious, given the range of features included in many applications, is that Apple wanted developers to take advantage of many of the iPhone's innovative technologies. Location-based services, the ability to use the iPhone's touch screen, direct access to the built-in camera and the ability to track movement of the iPhone using its directional sensors permeate the third-party apps now available. The directional controls used in many of the games adds a whole new dimension to mobile gaming and, in combination with the graphics and touch-screen capabilities, turns the iPhone into a mobile gaming as well as computing and communications platform.

I can't possibly review all of the individual applications available, but I will say that whether you're considering a new iPhone 3G or simply installing the iPhone 2.0 update on an older one, you have got to explore the App Store. Given the quality of the applications and the temptation to buy, you could spend a lot of money in the App Store.

Push functionality

While I haven't gotten a chance to connect my iPhone to an Exchange server and begin testing the enterprise functionality it now offers, I have taken a brief look at MobileMe's new push offerings. Despite the initial problems Apple suffered bringing MobileMe into the world last week, the service shows a great deal promise. I was able to sync contact and calendar data wirelessly over the air as promised, though it may take a while to do the initial sync, during which time it may look like nothing is happening. Push e-mail also appears to work fairly well, although I'm not sure it was perfectly immediate in its delivery. I expect MobileMe to more than deliver on the promises that .Mac offered but never quite lived up to.