My Must-Install iPhone Apps

After a long, hard look at a number of VERY expensive Windows Mobile phones, and waiting with bated breath for the announcement of the iPhone 3G, my husband and I have finally made the decision to move to AT&T and get a couple of white 16GB iPhones. The one catch is that we have to wait until the end of August for our contract with T-Mobile to expire. I’ve been very happy with my cellular service on the T-Mobile network, but their phone selection isn’t getting any better, and I’m not going to spend $600 on an unlocked WM phone.

I’m spending the next 45 days leading up to iPhone Liberation Day planning out my iPhone experience–researching cases, drooling over all the new programs in the App Store, reading reviews, etc. I’ve already got a running list of the apps I plan to install on my shiny new toy to take the place of similar apps I’ve grown used to on the Windows Mobile platform:

Pocket Informant for iPhone – This app won’t be out until the fall, but it’s already at the top of my must-have list! Finding out that Pocket Informant would be coming to the iPhone was what cemented my decision in the great Windows Mobile vs. iPhone debate. I decided quite early on that Windows Mobile’s built-in Calendar was not powerful enough, and when I found Pocket Informant it was love at first sight. It’s a wonderful, customizable calendaring suite that is easily the most useful thing in my mobile arsenal. I am a heavy mobile calendar user (as I’ve detailed in previous posts!) so knowing that I’ll have a more robust solution on the iPhone makes me happy. Stanza – One of the things I use my PDA phone for most often is reading eBooks. I have amassed quite an eBook collection over the years, a mix of current stuff from retailers like eReader/Fictionwise and classics that are readily available from sites like Project Gutenberg and ManyBooks. When I saw Stanza in the App Store and examined it a little further, the top of my head almost blew off. It supports pretty much any format out there, which means that I won’t have to convert any of my library for the iPhone. I can just use the Stanza Mac application to transfer books to my iPhone and start reading right away. I think the iPhone’s gorgeous screen is going to make it a wonderful reading device. I can’t wait! Evernote – I love Evernote. It’s a great catch-all for the little bits of information that would otherwise end up on a random computer print out or scrawled on a wayward sticky note. My Evernote contains bits of stories, ideas that occur to me in the middle of the night, phone numbers, software registration information, web pages I’ve clipped, recipes…the list goes on and on. The Evernote iPhone app lets you access all your current notes, upload new text notes, use your iPhone camera to capture an image and upload it (Evernote lets you search text within photos, how cool is that?!) and lots, lots more. I’ve been using their Windows Mobile application in addition to having the desktop clients installed on both my Windows PC at work and my Mac at home. What a great application! eWallet – This is another program I use extensively on Windows Mobile that is making the transition to the iPhone. It’s not in the App Store yet, but apparently it’s just waiting on Apple to put it there, so it should be out shortly. It’s a GREAT service that stores and encrypts all your important information (accounts, passwords, etc.) so that you can access them easily AND safely. It’s been a lifesaver more than a couple times for me. I’m so happy that my favorites (or great equivalents thereof) will be on the iPhone! ListPro – Another favorite of mine from Windows Mobile by the same company that makes eWallet is coming to the App Store in the near future. I have a crap ton of lists in ListPro–books I own (exported from Delicious Library), things to buy, food lists, etc. I hope I’ll be able to import information like I can in the Windows Mobile version (or better yet, use the lists I already have created!) because that would make the transition just that much easier for me.

What are your go-to apps on the new iPhone?Â Talk back in the comments.