Most Useful Apps for iPhone

The iPhone is a range of Internet-equipped multimedia smartphone devices designed and manufactured by Apple. Games and software applications can be downloaded directly to the iPhone to increase its functionality, although the handset also comes preloaded with several key applications that provide the iPhone with its core features.

Web Browsing

Safari is the iPhone's built-in Internet browser, which provides full access to Web sites and online resources. Third-party Web browsers are also available on the App Store, including iBrowse2, Magic Browser, Quick Surf and PrivateWeb. These add a variety of additional features to Web browsing on the iPhone, such as private surfing, viewing two Web pages on the screen at once and saving Web pages for offline viewing. Although most Web pages are formatted for viewing on larger computer monitors, iPhone Web browsers include zoom and pan features accessible through gesture controls on the touchscreen to make pages more legible on the small screen.

App Store

The App Store is a part of Apple's iTunes online multimedia retail outlet and is home to the games and applications designed specifically to run on the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. All modern iPhones have an App Store application built into them that allows access to the iTunes online software store directly from the device. IPhones that have been unlocked from iTunes through a process called "jailbreaking" can also access a third-party application store called Cydia, which provides an outlet for games and applications that have not been through Apple's approval system.

Navigation

Apple cooperated with the Internet search engine company Google to create a native application for the iPhone called Maps, which provides free access to worldwide street maps and global positioning system (GPS) navigation. This is the same service that's available on Google through an Internet browser and works with the iPhone's GPS receiver to provide live location data. A variety of third-party navigation and route-planning applications are also available, including TomTom, AA Route Planner, CoPilot and MobileNavigator. These include additional navigation features such as speed camera positions, traffic alerts and lane guidance.

Multimedia

For video and music playback the iPhone has an application called iPod. Playlists can be created either on a computer or the iPhone itself and music or video folders synchronized automatically for adding new content, which are then accessible through the iPod app. Additional multimedia playback applications such as "OPlayer" and "AVPlayer" are available from the App Store and allow playback of audio and video formats that the iPod app is not compatible with. These include AVI, WMV, FLAC, MPG and OGG files, as well as providing support for external video subtitle files.