App Store
Evernote: simply awesome and the new 2.0 is so much faster

Last.fm: still on the list for now but if the CDN pay plan comes in this is off the list

Skype: VoIP on the iPhone. Nuff said. Although you’ll need to set up an American account to get it and the call quality has been inconsistent for me so far.

WordPress: using it now to write this post. Obviously only useful if you have a wordpress powered site.

Twitterfon: best free twitter app.

Facebook: they’ve done a good job making it more stable and useful although access to events and phone book would be helpful.

Web Apps
Google Reader: perfect. Star, share, comment, catalogue all from the iPhone.

Buxfer: got me to move my personal finances into the cloud.

Wikipedia: there are a couple store apps available but honestly the official mobile portal through safari is great enough.

Jailbroken Apps
PDANet: 3G tethered modem. Awesome

Clippy: cut and paste ahead of the 3.0 update.

SBSettings: quick access to settings without having to leave apps.

Honourable Mentions
Urbanspoon
Movies by Flixster
All Recipes

This is not a post about configuring my email settings although I have done some of that of late as well. No, this is really about how my iPhone cured not just my blackberry addiction but the underlying email addiction that was fueling my gadget fetish. I know there are a lot of Apple evangelists out there who will waste no time telling about how the iPhone is the greatest phone ever created, that Mac OSX can solve world hunger and that the new unibody MacBook Pros were really the secret force behind propelling Barrack Obama to the fore of the world stage but… that’s not really my point either. (although I do love my iPhone)

First. Recognizing the limitations of device and user
In truth my cell phone switch was simply a catalyst that forced me to think about email different(ly). In the past I loved my Blackberry for its always-on, 24-7, instant email capability. It made me feel productive, it made me feel connected and probably more importantly it made me feel important. The problem was I wasn’t any of those things. My wife thinks I’m important o don’t feel too bad for me.

See I loved getting an email at any time of day, no matter what I was doing but it wasn’t helping me get anything done. Even if it takes only 10 seconds to read an email it takes 1 to 2 minutes to refocus on a particular task. We talk about multi-tasking all the time but the truth is we can’t do it. Humans that is. We don’t multi-task we just get better at switching between tasks and instant email means you are just constantly switching tasks with all of the inherent re-engagement delay that comes along with it.

Now this is where the iPhone comes in. This summer I lost my blackberry. Sad day. The iPhone has just come out. It was sexy. It was shiny and it was made my Steve Jobs, with his bare hands, in a sweatshop in China… mine even seems like his magically sweaty hands.

Anyway, the iPhone doesn’t do instant email unless you pay for mobile me (or use Yahoo mail, but seriously who does that?) You can set it to check for new mail as frequently as every 5 minutes. Problem is the battery in the device is not nearly as functional as it is… did I mention sexy yet? So 5 minute intervals meant I could barely make it through a day without a dead phone. That was no good.

Instead I had to dial it back to checking every hour. It was painful.

Until I realized how much easier my Thursdays were. Instead of being interrupted every 5 minutes by a random email as I wrote. I would take a break once an hour and read my mail. My focus was better, my writing was better, and I just felt a lot less pressed for time at the end of the day because I had actually accomplished more.

The limitations of my iPhone had actually improved my work habits. I’ve considered sending an email to Apple but I doubt they’ll use my story in an advertisement anytime soon since it’s predicated on either what the phone won’t do or doesn’t do well.

Second. Maximize the potential
The one big problem I had with my blackberry was the fact that I did not have a Blackberry Enterprise Server behind me. The church I work isn’t big enough for that kind of software investment to make any kind of sense at all. So with BES it means your blackberry can read and send email but it doesn’t actually interact with your server. So… any email you read or write on the device is self contained on the device. None of that information goes back to the server. So if you read 50 emails on your device all 50 will be waiting in your inbox when you return to your computer. Also you’ll have no record of any emails you sent while mobile.

There are ways around that. You can be bcc yourself on emails and then filter them in Outlook… yadda yadda yadda… or you can invest a big chunk of cash in BES

Part of switching over to my iPhone was witching all of my email over to Google. IF there is any corporation that owns a larger part of my day than Apple it’s Google. We now use Google Apps to run all of our email and though that is a separate conversation, it’s also very cool.

Anyway, part of that switch meant that I could log into my email with my phone using IMAP instead of POP3. That means any changes on one device are transferred back to the server. File an email on the phone; it’s done when you get back to the computer. Read it on the computer, it’s read on the device. Fantastic. (yes you can set up Gmail using IMAP on your blackberry now)

That kind of synchronicity (to steal from the Police) in just 6 months has become absolutely invaluable to me.

Third. Personal Systems
The last piece of my email revolution was implementing a modified GTD system within Gmail. One of the best parts of Gmail is the use of labels instead of folders. You can use them exactly like a folder if you’re comfortable with that pattern but if you can make the mental shift all kinds of new email labeling possibilities open up to you. Sounds exciting doesn’t it. The big difference is you can apply multiple labels to one email. In a folder system you have to make multiple copies if you want them in multiple folders.

What I’ve implemented is two sets of labels (all accessible from my iPhone BTW). The first is three labels for tasks. Action, Waiting and Someday. Action is something I need to do. Waiting is something I am involved with but can’t act on until someone else acts first. Someday is stuff I would like to do but isn’t pressing. The second set of labels are contexts. Office, Online and Phone. Office means I can only do this if I’m at the office. Office and online I will leave to your imagination.

Every email that comes in get read and then either archived (with Gmail nothing need ever be deleted) or if I need to deal with it, labeled with a task and context designation.

On top of that Gmail lets you use an infinite number of alias addresses in the format youname+anythingyouwnt@gmail.com. So I’ve set up all of my task designations as contacts in my address book. Instead of keeping a separate task manager I just email myname+action@gmail.com for anything I want added to my task list.

All this means I truly have one inbox. For everything. Gmail is it. Period.

Using Dial2Do.com I can even call and dictate a task item to myself that gets email to my action list when I can’t type it out.

Between these three things, recognizing the limitations of my device and myself, maximizing the potential of the services I’m already using and developing my own personal system for detail management, I’ve actually significantly decreased the amount of time I spend dealing with email, the frustrations I’ve had with it, and my bizarre fixation on it. At the same time I’ve increased my productivity and actually made email useful all over again.