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If you have been bitten by the ibug, you are not alone. I finally needed a new phone and waited until the 3G was released in June to feed my gadget addiction. Yes it is true. I could not believe how simple it was to order it online, and have it arrive on time, and ready to go. I made the switch from Verizon to AT&T and even that was simple. But enough on that, let's get to the good stuff, the apps. On February 5, 2009, David Pogue of the NYTimes said there were about 15,000 apps available. On April 22, 2009 USAToday reported that the billionth app download would be any day. The popularity of the apps is staggering. Stanford and MIT are offering courses for students teaching them to design and market their own ideas for apps. It is a real world experience since the paid programs produce real cash. Some people have left lucrative jobs to pursue programming these little applications. The site http://www.apptism.com/ states that they are tracking over 61,000 apps as of today's date (July 20,2009).

In addition to the confusion about which app to add to your precious iPhone, Apple is considering a rating system for apps. According to a NYTimes article by Saul Hansel in May, they are looking at four categories of rating apps. The 17+ category I assume would contain some of the more violent and racy applications. Read his article, to get some more insight on this idea of rating.

The number of apps is growing each day. There are so many to evaluate and determine their personal as well as educational value. Here are a few websites that are doing that very thing:

Leslie Fisher :iPhone Support Group Presentation

Apptism.com - new releases, evaluations

AppAdvice.com - daily rates the new releases

iSmash Phone-reviews, how to, tutorials

If you would like to contribute your opinion to a collection of good apps for education then visit this wiki: cfpmsiphone.wikispaces.com It is a collaborative effort to encourage teachers to consider using an iPhone/iTouch in the classroom. I would say one of the most popular FREE apps used at the DENLC Symposium was Bump. If you create a contact for yourself in your contact file, then download Bump. Open the preferences in Bump and find another person who has Bump on their iPhone/Touch. Simply Bump the two devices together and you will feel a shake. That is the magic of the information being transferred to the other device.

I don't think we have room or time to review the 62,000 apps in the iTunes store, but respond to this post by naming your top 5 apps below in the comments. You never know what you can learn from each other. OR contribute to this wiki that is quickly becoming a collaborative project.

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