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.

Final thoughts

While the wait may have been long and trying -- and I do think Apple should have been better prepared to handle the onslaught of iTunes activations -- I can say it seems to have ultimately been worth the effort. After just a few hours of use, I have to tell you that the iPhone 3G packs quite a punch, both in its design and in the 3G and GPS capabilities. Combined with the new features available to all iPhone owners, it is a generational leap forward that raises the bar for what a mobile device can be.

Yes, there are a couple of legitimate complaints about the iPhone not yet addressed: The battery is not removable, the onscreen keyboard is too narrow, you can't expand the memory, the camera is only 2 megapixels and there's no flash or video support. But I suspect it won't be long before Apple or some third-party developer comes along to fix that. For most users, this is the "it" device, and rightly so. It offers up the features most people want and manages to do so in an innovative way that makes you feel like you're holding a piece of technology from the future. Despite being exhausted from waking up before 5am Friday, standing in line for hours and then waiting even longer for iTunes, I'm happy to have my iPhone 3G.

Ryan Faas is a frequent Computerworld contributor specializing in Mac and multiplatform network issues. You can find more information about him at RyanFaas.com.