iPhone Apps Apple Doesn't Want You to Install

Clippy adds the long-desired ability to copy and paste text between applications. For example, you can copy an SMS message and paste it into an e-mail. Alas, Clippy does not work in Mobile Safari. Free

The iPhone's built-in contact directory lets you store pictures that pop up when someone calls. Cyntact displays those pictures in the scrolling listing itself, allowing you to find contacts rapidly by facial recognition. $1

The iPhone's visual voice mail is a captive portal for audio messages. Voicemail Forwarder lets you forward individual messages to any e-mail address for archival purposes or just to pass around someone's silly comments. $2.49

The iPhone supports up to nine pages of apps. Power users want more, and they want to organize them for easy access. To this end, Categories lets you group applications into an arbitrary number of springboard folders. Folder contents scroll horizontally to show multiple screenfuls of apps. Free

Most digital cameras today can record video as well as still images. Now the iPhone can, too. Cycorder captures video at up to 15 frames per second in bright lighting at 384-by-288 resolution, yielding QuickTime movies. Free

AT&T prohibits tethering, but jailbroken phones can bypass this restriction using PDANet, sharing Internet via a Wi-Fi connection to the phone or via USB cable to Windows PCs. Be sure you have an unlimited data plan if your iPhone is unlocked for another cellular provider. Free

The camera app built into the iPhone does little more than a disposable digital camera. Snapture adds a timer, auto-rotation, image resizing, leveler, color and burst modes, digital zoom, and silent snapping. It makes self-portraits easy. $7.99

Global search of iPhone content. Searcher scans virtually all iPhone content -- contacts, SMS, notes, events, Mobile Safari bookmarks and history -- for any keyword, grouping results for easy recognition. You can then inspect item details by tapping. Free

For that special someone, play the video of your choice along with audio. MiVTones provides a video sharing community as well. $9.99

For those times when you can't be online, MxTube lets you salt away a few cool YouTube videos for offline viewing. Free

Prices for apps in the iTunes App Store often fluctuate. BargainBin lets you spot significant price drops or temporary price reductions to snag the best deal on the apps you want. Free

Browsing the Web on your iPhone can be slow going when downloading ad-cluttered pages. Adblock filters out most ads, speeding Web page display tremendously. Not really an application, Adblock is a list of the most common ad hosting sites. Replacing your iPhone's existing /etc/hosts file with this list effectively redirects ad HTML links to nowhere. As a bonus, Adblock also disables Apple's application killswitch server. Free

FindMyi.orgFindMyiTracks your iPhone location in the background. If you've ever misplaced your iPhone, you know the deep pit of fear that can instantly envelope you, especially if your phone was on silent ring. Allay that fear with FindMyi, which employs GPS and cell site triangulation to track the location of your phone at programmable intervals. The program hides itself once enabled, running in the background. You can view your phone's location at any time, as well as its traveling history, via a paid subscription to the FindMyi Web site. If you believe your phone is stolen, you can recover data and lock the phone. $2 per month

Every other phone on the market can exchange files via Bluetooth -- to both Bluetooth-enabled computers and other phones. But Apple did not ship Bluetooth file transfer support with the iPhone. Fortunately, iBluetooth adds the capability, allowing you to easily transfer multiple files simultaneously in both directions to any other Bluetooth device. $4.99

Who knows why Apple left by-the-week views out of the iPhone calendar? Fortunately, myWeek puts them in, along with a year view and the ability to search your calendar by keyword. $2.99

When you want to see at a glance that you have new SMS, e-mail, or IM messages, Apple's text-only status messages make you squint. StatusNotifier presents clear message and other status icons on the sleep screen and status bar. Free

Transferring files using the spacious user interface of your desktop or notebook Mac is much more convenient than twiddling the iPhone's tiny controls. NetaTalk makes your iPhone discoverable via Mac OS X Bonjour file sharing, letting you mount your iPhone as a remote disk. Take care, though -- NetaTalk's root-level access gives you the power to overwrite any file. Free

Exploiting speedy Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity, Qik lets you stream live video from your iPhone to the qik.com capture site, where you can share your video sessions in real time or archive them for later retrieval. Partnerships with Mogulus, Justin.tv, and Twitter allow you to broadcast your qik iPhone live video far and wide. Free

As shipped, the iPhone can output to a TV output via an AV accessory cable, but only for playing YouTube and iPod videos or displaying still photos. TV-Out enables general-purpose TV viewing of any iPhone content, including live video from the camera, Mobile Safari, map navigation, and other applications. Free

Switching between your computer desktop and the small iPhone screen can be tedious, especially for entering textual information. Veency lets you remotely control your iPhone from your computer desktop using a VNC client application like Chicken of the VNC. You can view the screen, touch controls, and activate physical controls such as the lock and menu buttons. Free

We all have those nuisance callers and SMSers we'd just as soon ignore. MCleaner lets you automate the ignoring process by blacklisting Mr. or Ms. Annoying. You can set up multiple profiles to selectively screen groups of people at times of your choosing. $11.99