On July 11, 2008 Apple launched an update for the iPhone, softare version 2.0. This is a free upgrade for current iPhone users, included as standard on the new iPhone 3G, and an inexpensive ($10) upgrade for iPod Touch users. As part of the 2.0 software update came a long awaited addition to the iPhone, the new Application (App) store. The App Store, located inside the new iTunes 7.7, provides immediate access to well over 500 software applications for the iPhone, many of which are free and most others priced from $2.99 - $9.99. iPhone and iPod Touch users also have the ability to access the new App Store directly from their updated mobile device.

Ever since the initial launch of the iPhone in June 2007, many photographers have adopted the iPhone as their mobile device, as it provides an elegant way to show off their portfolios anywhere they go. The high-resolution screen, auto rotating feature, pinch and zoom, and slideshow modes all helped to make the iPhone a near perfect mobile companion for photographers. Now, with the launch of approved native applications, photographers have a growing number of applications to choose from - most designed for photo sharing, uploading, and viewing online photographs. Over the past month or so I have been busy trying, using, downloading, and removing many photography specific apps for the iPhone and have compiled my thoughts on many of them here. I start with my Top 5, though not in any particular order.

Pangea VR (Free) Link to Pangea VR in iTunes All I can say is WOW! This free application allows you to view and pan around hundreds of high-resolution 360° panorama scenes. Just make sure you are using a WiFi network. If you are you will most likely be blown away by the quality and usability of this application. Take a walk through LA Movie sets, Private Yachts, Luxury Homes, Paris, Germany, China, and much more. This is also a must-have application for realtors that use virtual tours of their properties. The interface is pre-loaded so the connection speed will not affect your browsing speed. When you find a panorama you wish to view, the download can take as long as a minute or two (over EDGE) or just a few seconds (over WiFi), but even on the EDGE network, it is worth the minute or two wait. Pangea VR also allows you to bookmark favorite pano's, making them easier to find later when you want to show them to others. You can also manually enter a URL to an XML portfolio of panorama images or to panoramic images saved in JPEG format with a 2.1 width: height ratio, but I found most URL's just to tedious to enter. In summary, all I can say is download this today and start killing time. Before Pangea VR I used to kill free time by reading news. Informative, but boring. Now I use a lot of my free time viewing incredible vista's and other panoramic images.

Fotomatic ($4.99) Link to Fotomatic in iTunes Fotomatic is a newly released photography slide show application for the iPhone. On the surface Fotomatic seems to do what the iPhone can already do out of the box, that is to display pictures in a slide show using a variety of transitions. However, Fotomatic does offer features that are not available with the built-in photo application. Namely, it can connect to albums and download photographs from Flickr, Picasa, and Facebook sites - and has a generous selection of 'fun' albums in different categories. The application provides the ability to cap the amount of photos per album (to save memory on your iPhone I presume) to 25, 50, 100, 250, or 500. When Fotomatic grabs images from one of these online services it does downsize the image for the iPhone which helps to conserve precious iPhone memory. Fotomatic currently offers 15 transition 'themes,' but more will most likely be added with each subsequent release. My favorite themes are: Photo Book, Orbit (New in latest version), spin, wavy (water like effect), and bulletin board (chalkboard is basically the same with a different background). The application is definitely buggy, though most applications from the App Store are at this time, so I think a lot of it has to do with Apple's iPhone 2.0 software as well as with the application itself. With a price of $4.99 I cannot really recommend this application at this time. There are not enough 'themes,' the application crashes too often, and at $4.99 the application should allow you to select songs or a playlist to play along or even sync up with the photographs.

SmugShot for iPhone (Free*) Link to SmugShot in iTunes * SmugShot is a free downloadable application from the App Store, however you will need to subscribe to Smugshot after an initial 14-day free trial on their website. The SmugShot application basically allows you to take pictures or find images already on your iPhone and upload them to your SmugMug account. Before uploading you are also able to add a caption and keywords to each photograph. That is basically it. Nothing fancy, but an okay application for SmugMug users.

MoPhoTo (Free) Link to MoPhoTo in iTunes MoPhoTo is a front-end photo viewer for users of Flickr, MySpace, Photobucket, and Picasa. Just enter a username for any of the aforementioned website's and MoPhoTo will create an album for all of the photos. Unlike, Fotomatic, MoPhoTo does not download the images into the iPhone. This saves space but makes for slow going when your connection is limited to the EDGE network. While viewing an individual photo, MoPhoTo allows you to save the image to your iPhone. The application also provides a standard slide show feature, which is a great way to show off photographs that you do not want to keep on your iPhone. MoPhoTo was also smart in providing standard gestures while viewing photographs. You can pinch, zoom, and swipe your finger to change photos or zoom ratio. MoPhoTo has not yet crashed, has a pretty good interface, and does what it claims and does it fairly well. The interface itself can be a bit slow, taking 5-6 seconds when you switch from slide show to the 'manage my albums' view. There are a few features I would like to see in future versions. Since the application does not ask for a password it can only provide access to public albums. If you have albums marked as private on Picasa for example, MoPhoTo will not show them. This makes it less useful for me since I often mark family photos as private. Hopefully in the future we will see MoPhoTo add the ability to enter password information in order to access these private photos. I have also read online that MoPhoTo will only show 3 albums on any one account - even if you have 5 that are public. I have not yet confirmed this. I would also like to see the ability to upload photos added which would make this a must-have application. All in all, MOPHOTO is one of my favorite photo viewing applications for the iPhone. It does what it claims and does it very well. Add a few more of the suggested features and this application will be a worthy download even if they start to charge a small fee ($4.99) for it.

Exposure (Free) Link to Exposure in iTunes Exposure is a Flickr front-end for the iPhone. Users can access Flickr photos, tags, photosets, and even contacts. Exposure also gives you a way to search Flickr photos from the phone or to search for nearby geotagged photographs. This feature uses the iPhone's 3G or the iPhone's EDGE and WiFi Networks to help determine your approximate location. Exposure also allows you to read and add comments to each viewed photo. This free application includes ads but they are not intrusive. If you just cannot live with an ad sponsored application, Exposure is available in an ad-free, premium version, for $4.99. I would like to see the ability to pinch and zoom on photographs. If viewing in Portrait mode, you can double tap the screen and the image will jump to a full-zoom center position, but there is no way to pan around the photograph. I find it interesting that pinch, zoom, and swipe were not included especially since the app is one of the few on the market that makes use of the iPhone's contact-like interface for scrolling through the alphabet when searching by tag name. Since Exposure is providing access to online photographs the connection speed will affect how quickly images are displayed. On Wifi the display of photos were very quick. Over the EDGE network, thumbnails were slow to load and viewing the full size image took almost 20 seconds. That time should be cut in half when viewing in a 3G coverage area on an iPhone 3G.

Future contender for the top 5? Picoli ($4.99) Link to Picoli in iTunes I have to be honest and tell you that I have not yet downloaded Picoli. But the application looks very useful and the reviews so far have been excellent. Picoli is the first (and only that I know of) iPhone application that allows you to retouch photos right on your iPhone using high quality filters and image processing algorithms. It is billed as a "portable photo studio in your pocket." Each retouched photo is saved in your photo album (up to 2MP resolution) and never effects your original image. You can then email or sync them to your PC as your normally would with the other photos in your album. Picoli provides the ability to adjust the brightness, sharpness, saturation, illumination (exposure), contrast, and color balance of your photographs. You can also add a sepia tone, color dithering look, gray dithering look, night vision look, or a sunburn look to your photos. You can also rotate or mirror flip your images. From the 26 reviews in the iTunes store, this application was given an average score of 4.5 stars out of 5. Truthfully, I have not downloaded this application yet merely for the fact that I do not find much of a need to enhance the mostly low-resolution images that I take with my iPhone. At $4.99 you probably cannot go wrong with this application if you enjoy tweaking your iPhone photos. There are a total of 24 applications in the App Store under the category of Photography. The 5 listed above are the ones that I have used and kept on my iPhone. The last one, Picoli (Future Contender), may make it into the top 5 if I can convince myself of the actual need for it.

Phanfare (Free) Link to Phanfare in iTunes If you're a user of the Phanfare photo sharing website, you will be happy to know that Phanfare has a free app for the iPhone that is getting decent reviews. From within the application you can create new albums, set security from your iPhone, upload photos in the background while you take more photos, share your photos on Facebook, and delete photos. At some point I will open a Phanfare account in order to test this application myself. For now, I think it is safe to say that users of Phanfare (and the iPhone) will be glad this application exists and is free.

SnapMyLife (Free) Link to SnapMyLife in iTunes SnapMyLife, like many other iPhone 2.0 apps, makes use of the iPhone's location feature to automatically share your geotagged photographs taken with the iPhone's camera. SnapMyLife allows you to view other photos taken in your area, as long as they were uploaded and tagged using SnapMyLife. I was surprised that even in my area, seacoast of NH, there were a half-dozen photos shot by others when I went to the MAP view and tapped to locate photos nearby. The application is fairly simple. Either take a picture, view pictures taken yourself or by others, read or add comments to photos, and locate photos taken close to your current location. All in all, the application works, but I find that it is more fun than useful.

Almost, but no cigar! AirMe! (Free) Link to AirMe! in iTunes There is one photo application that is on my iPhone that I didn't mention (until now), AirMe. AirMe allows you to capture photos using the iPhone's camera and instantly upload it to Flickr already geotagged with your location (if so desired). If you do not have a flickr account you can upload and store your photos on the AirMe.com website. Unfortunately, the application forces you to create an AirMe account even if you just want to use your Flickr account. You also cannot upload previously stored photos, only ones that you take at the moment. You can preset the resolution of the uploaded photo, but no larger than 1024x768 (1 megapixel). I also find that I have to shut the iPhone off and then turn it back on before running this application. If I do not, the app sometimes opens, sometimes doesn't. All in all, I find that the application works, it just doesn't do much for me.