I think the iPhone is a great platform for learning so I thought I'd share a list of my favorite reference and learning applications, most of which are free. I find myself learning something new just about everyday with the iPhone running these great applications simply due to the fact that they make learning so convenient and accessible. Now when I wait for my doctor I'm not stuck reading outdated entertainment news!

This isn't only true for adults either. When I upgraded from the 2g to the 3g S I gave my four year old son my old phone and bought him a bunch of children's educational applications. I find him using these educational applications on his own. When he is not playing he is typically relaxing on the couch learning how to read, write, or do math on his own and I think this is just awesome. I should make a list of the applications he uses at some point also.

On to the list...

This just annoys me! People package Public Domain books, likely created by volunteers at Gutenberg, and sell them as individual e-books on the AppStore. You can download most of these free in Stanza or simply download them off the web and upload them to your phone using one of the file applications. Stanza is free by the way!

Today I see another application along these lines called Cartoon Classics Lite. There is a pay version too... In the lite version they limit the amount of cartoons you can get and for both the pay and lite versions you have to be on WiFi to use them. PEOPLE!!! These are Public Domain cartoons! You can open You Tube on your iPhone, search Public Domain Cartoons and watch without WiFi. You can also download these off the internet and upload them to your phone.

I also noticed that AOL Radio and SHOUTcast are the same application! Yep, look at the interface as well as the fav and station buttons. Basically a company pays to have a developer build an app and they just use a skeleton application... Since these are free I can't really complain, but if you think people are working hard to bring you quality products just remember, it's a buy and label world, not an industrious and innovative world – those days are gone, just ask George Foreman.

Twitter is like sitting in your house on a summer afternoon, you never know if the uninvited knock on the door is an old friend, a neighbor, or a door to door salesman.

But then again, I've never had a hooker knock on my door to invite me over to their apartment either...

I see there are a few really good sites listing some excellent open source OS X applications, but here are a few that they always leave out that I think deserve to be included.