Let it be said: I love my iPhone. And yes, I did wait 5 hours in line to get it several months ago. It is the first mobile computer that I have felt comfortable using. The touch interface is undeniable the best way to interact with a machine: I do not have to dissociate my thought processes through a mouse or a keyboard.

More importantly, the iPhone app store has bought a completely new way of selling software that literally cuts out the marketing and distribution costs for software publishers. There is an incredible amount of software innovation in the app store.

Still it surprises me what apps I find the most useful. I have started playing games again because casual gaming on the iPhone has brought casual to new level of casuality. I don’t even have to find a computer to play games; I just pull out my phone. Apart from games, the apps I use the most are

• Ambiance: generates ambient noise that easily drowns out the chatter of the bar across the street, and the sound of emotionally needy grad students that work in my lab

• Ultralingua: a French-English dictionary. I find it much faster to load the app and look up a word than to cart around a dictionary and flip through dog-eared pages.

• Yelp: I never really used the website before I got the iPhone, but since it is now coupled to a phone that has a GPS, Yelp.com has suddenly increased its utility a thousand fold. The iPhone app automatically filters results to where I am standing right now on this fair earth, and if there is a phone number to be called, I can just tap on the number and ring.

• Deep Green: I wasn’t going to talk about games, but this chess game is one of the most elegant games I’ve ever played. There’s nothing high-tech about the graphics, no 3d animations, but every little transition animation is just so perfect.