My top ten favorite free "legit" iPhone Applications in no real special order. Some are so good they have replaced some of the standard iPhone applications.

Pocket Express is a great application for reading the top news of the day. What makes it great is it has categories to drill down through so you can view the top headlines for the U.S. or look through some strange news, politics, or even take a look at tech news. I like that it isn't tied to any one news agency so I don't get the feeling it's merely a marketing tool that limits the news I see or limits the articles to one perspective. Some features are not implemented as of yet, like Horoscopes, but I am willing to wait for them because this application delivers all the news in an organized way. You will also find entertainment, sports, weather, and financial news making this a well rounded news application that will be likely to replace the basic Yahoo tools that came with the iPhone as well as any news application you currently use.

Palringo has effectively replaced SMS for me! If you were disappointed that the iPhone lacked an MMS application this application may be what you're looking for. You're limited to photos and voice media and the application will stop running if another application is started, which is a limitation pushed by Apple, but it will continue to run when the screen is locked. I guess that would be nice if you're waiting on something so important e-mail or a phone call will not do and the battery life can be sacrificed. The application is responsive and well designed and will try to automatically reconnect if your network flakes out. This application requires an account be setup. What's really nice is the desktop client that lets you setup Google Talk, Yahoo, ICQ, AOL, etc... These all show up on the iPhone effectively making this the best chat application for the iPhone as well as desktop imo.

YouNote is a note taker that majorly kicks the crap out of the iPhone's Notes application. Whether you want to type a note, record a voice note, draw a note, or even take a pic or snap a web-page this application will give you much note taking power! It will even capture your location via GPS. My only real complaint is the lack of sharing, like through a mail message, that would be a great feature. This application however is solid and gives you many options for organizing, like by color and tags. This is a real must have if you take notes often on a variety of things.

Zenbe is a lists building application, the one thing Apple missed in their default applications pool. With Zenba you can create and manage your own lists, like shopping and ToDo lists, the sky's the limit. You can also share and sync your lists through their service, requires an account. I can imaging sharing lists is a much loved feature for some spouses... Hope my wife doesn't read this.

WeatherBug is another application that just rocks. You guessed it, it replaced the iPhone weather app! I have used WeatherBug on the desktop since it's first days and was happy to see it on the iPhone. Way more complete than the standard weather app, more accurate also. Provides radar views, three day forecasts, alerts, and even cams. You can also add multiple locations if you're a traveler.

vSNAX is a channel based video application. It's buggy, but I really like it. If you have ever used Miro, it reminds me of that, you will see the commonality. If they get the bugs worked out, add more channels, and can make it pull in my video podcasts it's a winner and would likely be a replacement for the YouTube application. We will see where it goes.

YPmobile is basically the Yellowpages, but it is more of an event finder and listing service. Uses the GPS to locate you then lists events around you, like concerts, festivals, etc. Out of the few applications that attempt event listings this is the best; although, it does miss some things and event updates seem lacking. It needs better filtering, like who wants town meetings, but all in all it does a decent job and lets you save your activities. It did find an event I would have missed otherwise that my son really liked. Categories for events would be a really nice feature and would save time, maybe we will see this in future releases.

Yelp is really cool review application for the iPhone. Yelp will locate businesses around you via GPS, will give directions, and let you bookmark places. It requires an account if you wish to post reviews, but is really nice for quick lookups when you're out and about. For my area the reviews are lacking so I joined and started reviewing. Yelp is a social network, you can add friends, share reviews, photos, and even review lists. I really like this site a lot and hope to see more people join so it becomes even more useful. My only complaint with the Yelp application is that you cannot post reviews/images via the phone. I also use Earthcomber to find new places and to get reviews for things not yet in Yelp.

Stanza I was going to include a game, but I find a good read to be way more entertaining. I also considered one of the internet radio applications, like AOL radio or Pandora, but they're really only useful on WiFi, near a charger, and as much music as I have I don't really need someone else to play it for me. Stanza currently wins it's place in this list because I can search and download free classic books at will, plus it uses very little resources. Stanza has awesome settings, allowing me to change text size, background color, etc. It flips from portrait to landscape, keeps my books marked, and keeps a list of read books. Really nice reader, I just worry it will never have a Windows client for uploading books and the free of charge will change to a pay product at some point. My hope is that they will provide book sales directly from Stanza on the phone and reap their profits from book ads and sales. With a history of read material the ad targeting could work much like Adsense.

CellSpin A blog tool that works with many services like Twitter, Live Journal, Face Book, etc. Really nice and is multimedia based. You can post text, images, and voice. Great app! Requires an account.

Honorable mention:

Remote simply lets you control iTunes from your iPhone or iPod Touch. I really dig this because my computer is a home theater and hooked into my stereo system. I wish all my remotes worked this way!

With all these great apps one has to ask, what's the worst you have tried? With out a doubt it has to be Cellfire Mobile Coupons!I give most things a decent chance, but this gave me crappy deals that did not change even though I used zips in California. I figured there I'd get something decent - nope, same crappy deals. It also requires a lot of info, just trust me and stay away from it at lest for now...