The applications that Apple added to the iPhone may well be the most innovative and useful addition ever made to a cell phone. These applications can easily turn the iPhone into just about any tool.

Apple has developed an excellent way to develop and distribute these add-on applications or tools. They allow outside developers to create the applications. Then they are reviewed by Apple and added to the iTunes App Store. As an iPhone user, you can download the applications directly to your iPhone or you can download them on your computer through iTunes and then synch the iPhone to get the applications to your phone.

There are hundreds of applications available. Many are free. Some charge, but the fees are reasonable….between $1 and $20 with most under $5. The applications are amazingly diverse. You can download a grocery list keeper, an Etch-a-Sketch (shown in Figure 18), a currency converter, and e-book reader, and just about anything else you can think of.  Some of the applications are simple time-wasters, like Bubbles, shown in Figure 17, which simply allows you to create and pop bubbles on the screen. Yet some will increase your productivity. Many of the applications, especially the games, take advantage of the touch screen and accelerometer to be quite dazzling and addictive.

 
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Figure 17: Etch-a-Sketch.

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Figure 18: Bubbles.