* as voted for by a quick crowd-sourcing exercise on Twitter.

So, I've just invested a potload of "buy in" cash, stolen the wife's cellphone contract upgrade and taken the dive into a true SmartPhone experience. Yes, the iPhone 3GS 32 GB is finally mine.

It really is easy to be an Apple fanboy, isn't it.

Obviously one of the most important parts of an iPhone experience is the collection of apps that you have. To that end, I crowd-sourced some local favourites. Here they are! This list is a great starting point for any new iPhone user, or for someone looking to expand their collection. Most are free, and I've indicated where some of the applications seem to be unavailable in the SA iTunes store.

Without further ado...

Most popular iPhone applications for South African users...

Top voted applications, in order of popularity:

1. Evernote
2. Layer (POSSIBLY INTERNATIONAL)
3. Shazam (POSSIBLY INTERNATIONAL)
4. Tweetie 2
5. Wikipanion
6. Around Me
7. Camera Genius
8. Clutterfree
9. Echofon PRO
10. FaceBook
11. Fring
12. Lightsaber
13. Midomi
14. NY Times
15. Pocket God (POSSIBLY INTERNATIONAL)
16. Remote
17. Skype
18. Snapdat
19. The Grid
20. Tom Tom
21. Touch Physics (POSSIBLY INTERNATIONAL)
22. Tweetdeck
23. Tweetings
24. WifiTrak

Honorable mentions - applications that received at least 1 vote.

• Airmouse
• Amplitude
• BlogPress
• Snapture
• Stanza
• Sticher
• Gpush
• Golfers Info
• Beejive
• Byline
• Civilisation Revolution
• DSTV Guide
• Flixster
• Google
• The Grid
• iFitness
• Instapaper
• Kindle
• Last FM (POSSIBLY INTERNATIONAL)
• LinkedIn
• Monkey Island SE (POSSIBLY INTERNATIONAL)
• Paper Toss (POSSIBLY INTERNATIONAL)
• Photoshop (POSSIBLY INTERNATIONAL)
• PicPosterous
• Pocket Universe
• PS Mobile
• Remember the Milk
• Sneezies (POSSIBLY INTERNATIONAL)
• Spend Budget (POSSIBLY INTERNATIONAL)
• TED
• Urban Spoon
• Wordpress 2
• World of Warcraft

Hope you enjoy the list. I'm sure I'll be blogging a bit more about my iPhone experience as it matures. It's pretty easy to sum up at the moment: The battery dies in a day or less, but I can point the phone at the stars and view an augmented reality of star charts and star information (gleaned from my GPS / Altimeter).

That's cool.

Andy Hadfield is one of our www.MyByte.co.za  Thought leaders to subscribe to the Thought Leaders RSS feed click here http://snurl.com/md27j. Still not registered on www.MyByte.co.za ? Join the online network that connects the entire ICT industry in one room –virtually. Simply click here http://www.mybyte.co.za/signup.php its simple and it’s free! Register on mybyte and stand in line to win a brand new nokia.

 This article republished, with permission, from AndyHadfield.com. You can find Andy on his blog www.andyhadfield.com  or on Twitter @ www.twitter.com/andyhadfield