While I am completely caught up in the craze over the new iPhone, I have to admit, I’m a bit surprised by the mass hysteria over the app store. I’m not saying it’s no big deal. Apps like “Twitterific” and “Loopt” have absolutely blown my mind. However, apps on the iPhone are really nothing new. The difference now, of course, is that you have to pay for some.

Almost since the launch of iPhone, web developers have been creating custom user experiences for iPhone users. So much so, that Apple actually created a directory where it catalogs and displays these “web apps” for your convenience. Plus, with the quick creation of a web clip, you can even save these apps to your iPhone home screen, just like a real application.

With categories like, games, news, social networking, productivity, and more, you can see some striking similarities between these WEB apps and some of the apps in iPhone’s new app store. Could people be paying for some stuff that’s already available on the iPhone for free? It wouldn’t be the first time.

Web apps have some obvious limitations. They are designed to run in the iPhone’s web browser only, so they can’t take advantage of the accelerometer, the cocoa touch platform, the graphics engine, etc. There are some limitations. However, don’t thumb your nose up to these things just yet. You might find something you can’t live without was right in front of you all along.

http://www.apple.com/webapps/