It's not as good as the real thing, but better than nothing ... I guess.
Unwavering from their stance that "iPhone does run apps ... Web 2.0 apps," Apple went live with their Web apps directory on Apple.com. Web apps is a list of iPhone-optimized applications that live online and can be accessed through iPhone's Safari browser (or most other browsers, for that matter).
I perused the list and spent some time trying out some of the games, entertainment, news, and productivity apps (to name a few of the available categories) and they range from kind of lame to pretty darn cool. While I think it's great that developers are taking up Apple's call to design and/or retool software to take advantage of iPhone's OS and multitouch interface, I still think it's lame that Apple won't just open the thing up to applications that can be stored and run natively on the handset.
Even though phones are more or less "always online," iPhone runs on EDGE, not 3G, and EDGE can be slooooow. Playing the Missile Command Web app via a WiFi connection is one thing, but if I'd just waited a minute to load MenuLizard via EDGE, I'd be ticked off right about now. On the other hand, my hacked iPhone lets me play Yahtzee whenever I want, whether or not I've got any network connections at all.
Web apps are cool, and I'm glad for them ... but come on, Apple, open this baby up to real software development with real support from the mothership already!
View Apple web apps directory from here.