#2 Twitterific

Twitterific is a handy Twitter client from the folks at The Icon Factory that allows you to read and publish posts to the popular service.

The free version displays ads periodically but not so much as to be annoying. The also offer a “premium” version for $10 that lacks ads and has an extra theme. Avoid this version and stick to the free one. It’s overpriced and the “theme” is basically an ugly white background. Yuck.

#3 Pandora

Pandora is a free personalized Internet radio service based on the music genome project. It allows you to create custom radio stations that stream to your computer and now to your iPhone or iPod touch. When you log in your stations are available and you can stream music directly to your iPhone, and the iPhone 3G’s improved speaker makes it a very capable portable juke box thanks to Pandora. the best part is that it works on Wi-Fi, 3G and even Edge.

#4 Shazam

If you’ve ever heard a song on the radio and wondered what it was, Shazam is for you. It’s a super-trick application that listens to a track being played on the radio (or over the PA in the department store for that matter) and tells you what track is playing.

Shazam can identify music from radio, film, TV or even in a store. Remarkably, it performs amazingly well even driving down the highway at 65MPH with the windows down.

Once a song has been identified you can tag it to build your own soundtrack, see related videos and even forward tags to your friend. It’s brilliant and definitely worth the download.

#5 Box Office

Move buffs listen up. If you enjoy seeing movies in the theater you should download Box Office right away. It allows you to easily see what’s playing in theaters near you with a tap. You can also read reviews from RottenTomatoes.com and order tickets directly. I just wish they would add movie trailers. Oh well, maybe in the next update.

#6 AIM

What else can you say about AOL Instant Messenger? It’s been a long time coming and was desperately needed on iPhone. It’s free and it works well but it’s not perfect though.

For starters it should have the option of running as a full-time background application. I know that it will impact battery life, but it would be nice to have the option. Instead AIM uses Apple’s unified push notification service, which is supposed to start in September.

AIM also is single protocol, meaning that it doesn’t support Yahoo!, MSN or Jabber, but this leaves open a definite opportunity for third-parties. Adium to the rescue?

#7 eBay Mobile

Another fantastic iPhone application is the free eBay client. After logging in it allows you to search, bid and check auction activity from anywhere you have a 3G or Edge Internet connection. A nice summary screen gives you a count of auctions you’re watching, winning and ones that you’ve won and been outbid on. I can’t wait to see where this application goes and I’d like to see real-time auction status so that you can watch auctions count down in real time – without having to reload.

#8 NetNewsWire

NetNewsWire is a free RSS reader for iPhone that’s based on the killer desktop application from Brent Simmons. NNW syncs with all of Newsgator’s free RSS readers meaning that it will sync all your subscriptions between your computer and your iPhone. If you mark something read, it’ll be read everywhere.

The clipping feature allows you to save interesting items to view later on your other computers.

#9 Bloomberg

Bloomberg’s iPhone application isn’t what I expected. I thought that it would be just another news gatherer (like AP’s) that focuses on financial news. While it definitely does that, it also tracks stocks with a beautiful interface.

Bloomberg is what Apple’s stocks application should have been. Once you’ve looked up a company you can add it to your portfolio and keep track of the stock price with a beautiful stock chart and links to news headlines related to a particular stock.

In addition, Bloomberg offers company descriptions, market leaders/laggars, intraday and historical price charts and tons of analysis. Really nice and well worth the download.

#10 Eventful

Eventful launched a free iPhone app that complements their Web service which has nearly 7 million registered users.

Eventful bills itself as the world’s leading events web site u201cenabling a community of millions to discover, promote, share and create events.u201d It allows you to set up a group of events that you like and it notifies you when performers, events and other related things are happening near you.

The coolest feature is that Eventful can tap iPhone’s location awareness to show you what’s playing near you. Extremely useful feature to use when traveling.