Eight apps I want on the iPhone

As we all sit in (not so) silent torture waiting for Apple to release a true SDK (Software Development Kit) to developers for the iPhone, I figured it might be a bit more productive and fun to start dreaming up which apps would be great to bring along with us in our i-pockets. I'm glued to a Mac a lot during the day, both for my work and some of my hobbies – it would be great if I could take some of my favorite and most-used apps off the desktop and get a few things done without having to balance a notebook on my lap.

After thinking about it, I came up with eight apps I would really love to see on the iPhone. Of course, I have no idea if their developers are even considering rolling an iPhone version, especially since we have no clue as to when Apple will stop screwing around and actually release a full-on SDK. Nevertheless, a blogger can dream, and dream I did. Read on for my list of apps that I think would fit right at home on the iPhone.

1. NetNewsWire – nothing we've seen so far reveals whether Safari on the iPhone incorporates an RSS reader. While it's a good bet that RSS is probably there, power users will still be salivating for a dedicated RSS app, and it's hard to beat the wonders of NetNewsWire. Heck, we would take NewsFire, Vienna or even NewsLife.
2. TextExpander – I don't care how nice that virtual keyboard might be – I plan on dealing with a lot of email and (hopefully) managing at least a few of my Weblogs, Inc. duties on my iPhone, so saving time on typing will be just as important when I'm mobile as it is on my Mac. TextExpander is an invaluable tool for this, and it could really shine on the iPhone where input efficiency is likely to be a hot debate.
3. Comic Life – What better way to blow time during that morning commute or simply spend a few minutes poking fun at your friends than snapping pics with your iPhone and immediately whipping up a mini comic? Comic Life comes free on every Mac – it would be one of the killer, pure fun apps to offer free on the iPhone as well.
4. Journler / Yojimbo – I know these are two completely separate apps, but I lumped them together because they both serve similar purposes, and because of that it didn't seem right to list them separately. I keep a lot of data in both these apps, and it would rock if I could jot down ideas and notes on the go and have them sync up to these two killer apps on my Mac. I know the iPhone has a Notes app, and it would certainly make sense if that synchs with the upcoming notes feature in Mac OS X Leopard's Mail. But all my work is in the two aforementioned apps, and I would love to be able to bring some of that with me on the go.
5. iChat / Adium – duh. Many of us were a little disappointed to see an SMS icon in the iPhone's home screen but no iChat. Even the most basic of mobile phones these days do IM, and they typically work over all the big networks like AIM, Yahoo! and MSN. This app request is both out of virtual necessity for today's mobile iPhone-toting geek, but it's also part "what the hell, Apple?"
6. PictureSync – it's great that users will be able to synchronize photos from their Mac or PC and all, but again: many mobile phones these days either natively support uploading pictures (and sometimes even videos) shot on a phone to various community sites like Flickr, or it's easy to run out and find any number of 3rd party apps that fill the void. While some of these services allow users to upload pictures simply by emailing them, some sort of built-in functionality makes sense considering the rich multimedia features of the iPhone and the very, very wide demographic of users who will be purchasing it. I chose PictureSync here simply because I think it's a unique Mac OS X app that works with a surprising array of communities, and it seems to do on the desktop exactly what all these 3rd party sharing apps are doing on mobile phones.
7. Leopard's new theater times and shopping widget – Most iPhone customers would likely prefer to have all the power of that slick new movie theater show times + shopping widget in their pocket, ready to spring into action no matter where they are.
8. MarsEdit / ecto – Again with the duality because I know most users who would consider blogging on their phones will probably remain polarized between these two competing Mac OS X blogging clients. The point is: the iPhone could use a dedicated blogging client of some sort, and these two are great choices.

[Update: I just fixed all the application links to point to their correct developers and websites.]
Of course, this is just one list from one lowly blogger – what apps are you hoping 3rd parties can some day enhance the iPhone with? If we're lucky, the right developers might be reading and you could get your wish granted some time soon.