According to the research firm Gartner, the iPhone doubled its market share from 5.3 percent in the first quarter of 2008 to 10.8 percent in the first quarter of 2009.  What this means to me is that the iPhone is no longer just for us ultra techie people.  The price is coming down, and the average cell phone user is starting to join the flock.

We all know that with the iPhone comes applications (“apps” to the hipsters out there).  As the commercials say, there is an app in the iTunes store for just about anything that you can think of.  You can use your iPhone for practical things like turn-by-turn directions with the built-in GPS, or you can do silly things like make fart noises and turn your phone into a Star Wars Lightsaber.  Some apps are free, while others cost between $.99 and $100. Unlike a certain Network Engineer at Indra’s Net, most of us cannot afford to drop our hard-earned dollars on every new app that comes around.  For new iPhone users, I recommend starting with a few of the free apps just to get your piggies wet.  Here are the top 5 completely free apps that I frequently use.  You can download them directly to your phone from the iTunes store.  Some of these are already well known by the iPhone community, but if this is your first iPhone experience, you may not have had someone say, “Man, you have got to get this app.” Well, I am here to be that guy.

1.  Woot Watch.  Woot.com is a fairly popular website for people who are looking for a deal on electronics, along with other odds and ends.  Woot features a daily deal where they offer one product at a discounted price.  You may see anything from refurbished computers, to iPods, to silicone oven mitts.  About once every 6 – 8 weeks, Woot will have a blowout called a woot-off where they constantly post a new sale item as soon as the previous item sells out.  These sales typically last for 24 -72 hours.  The Woot Watch app for the iPhone gives people easy access to the Woot sites that include woot.com, sellout.woot.com (similar to the standard site), shirt.woot.com (a daily t-shirt deal), wine.woot.com (for the wine-o looking for a deal), and the soon to be added kids.woot.com (deals on kids toys).  With the Woot Watch app, you can easily monitor Woot sales, and make purchases right from your phone.

2.  The Weather Channel.  The basic weather application for the iPhone is a bare-bones program that only gives you the current temperature, and the high / low temperature forecast for the next six days.  The Weather Channel developed an application that is much more detailed and provides a lot more features including:

- Current, Hourly, 36 Hour, and 10 day forecasts
- A radar map that is overlaid on Google maps
- Local weather video
- Severe weather alerts

My favorite feature is the radar map.  When you enter your location, it will show you current precipitation in your area.  It also has an animate feature that shows storm tracking at 5-minute intervals.  I used this feature a lot at the beginning of the summer when we had all of those severe thunderstorms, and I was generally able to tell, within about 5 minutes, when a storm would be passing right over my location.

3.  Facebook.  I was a late holdout on the Facebook craze.  When it comes down to it, Facebook is a good way to stay in touch with friends and family.  I finally caved in, and it can actually be pretty fun.  Fun, that is, as long as you do not have friends that love to have a running dialogue of constant updates of meaningless information about their day.  It really should be only used to post interesting and relevant information about you.  Some people tend to abuse the status updating privilege.

My wife and I recently had our first child, and Facebook was great for providing a centralized location for updates on our situation.  This way, I did not have to make 100 different phone calls to let people know what was happening.  I could send one update to my page, and everyone who cared knew where that information was.  The Facebook app for the iPhone is a convenient way to update people on what is new in your world, and to see what others are up to without having to log on to your computer.  The newest version of the app also lets people upload pictures and video (iPhone 3GS required for video) directly to their Facebook page.

4.  Shazam.  This is one of the most well-known free applications that have been developed for the iPhone.  I am not sure about the name, but the function is amazing.  If you have ever been in a restaurant, nightclub, bar, movie theater, etc., and heard a song, but did not know who it is by, Shazam will tell you.  This application utilizes the microphone within your phone to analyze music, and then makes a determination of what the song is.  I have found it to be accurate every time it picks up the song, which is about 95% for me.  The next great feature of the application is that once it picks up a song, it will give you a link to the iTunes location where you can purchase the song, and it also sometimes provides a link to the video on YouTube if it is available.  This is truly one of the applications that you will be showing off to your non-iPhone using friends to show them how cool you are.

5.  Units.  This is probably one of the most practical applications that has been developed for the iPhone.  Units will convert just about anything into anything else.  Whether you are trying to figure out how many milliliters are in 2 fluid ounces of formula so that you can properly feed your 3-week-old screaming baby, or if you are just curious to know how much you weigh in stone, Units has you covered.  Units will help you convert units of measurement that have to do with area, currency (updated daily with Internet connection), energy, temperature, time, length, weight, speed, pressure, power, volume, data storage, and volumetric flow (never used this one).  It also has a ruler that shows up to 7cm or 3in.  Units really does have the answer to the question, “How many of this are in that.”

If you are a new iPhone user, I hope this helps get you started in the world of iPhone apps.  With so many applications out there, and most of them costing too much money, free is definitely the way to go.  Also keep in mind that a lot of the paid apps have trial or lite versions that allow you to test out a limited version of the program before deciding on whether or not it is worth paying for the full version.  I tend to wait for a strong word-of-mouth recommendation before I download a paid app.  If you need a recommendation on paid apps, I am sure the previously mentioned Indra’s Net Network Engineer would be happy to assist you.