Well, it finally happened. If you’ve upgraded to the latest version of iTunes, aka 7.7, you can check out the mythical iPhone App Store, and although you can’t buy anything yet, you’ll at least be able to choose the apps you’ll be spending your precious denaros on. *Update: ok, now you can start spending cash, if you’re so inclined.

As Steve Jobs promised earlier today, there are about 500 applications to choose from at this moment.

The categories for the apps are Business, Education, Entertainment, Finance, Games, Health & Fitness, Lifestyle, Music, Navigation, News, Photography, Productivity, Reference, Social Networking, Sports, Travel, Utilities, and Weather.

At first glance, I’m seeing a lot of games, plus some familiar names, like Twitterific, AIM client, Facebook, MySpace Mobile, Pownce, and Typepad. Most of the applications fall into the 0.99-9.99 dollar category, but some, like PhotoDial, cost as high as 14.99 dollars. The most expensive application I’ve found so far is LionClock Lite, a time tracker that costs a whopping 29.99 dollars. Well, strike that: Netter’s Anatomy Flash Cards and Netter’s Neuroscience Flash Cards - those cool medical apps that were shown when iPhone 3G was unveiled - are 39.99 each. Ouch. Simple applications such as Light, as well as many utilities, are free.

One disappointing category is definitely Navigation, which only contains 11 applications, one of which is Flashlight. Sure, it does help you see where you’re going, but I wouldn’t exactly call it navigation. I sure hope for more applications that will take advantage of iPhone’s shiny new GPS in the (near) future.

The best populated category, by far, is Entertainment, a good portion of which are simple ebooks. There’s also a lot of utilities, but not many fall into the must-have category.

All in all, the app store is populated well, but there’s nothing groundbreaking here; after a couple of days the ratings on the apps will make more sense, so it’ll be easier to choose the really good applications. And, of course, hopefully the developers will swarm to create new stuff so we’ll have a much wider choice soon.

Several more screenshots await after the jump.

We’ve been barraged with news from services announcing iPhone applications to accompany the iPhone 3g revealing today, and we’re passing the good fortune along to you. The latest to create an iPhone app to take advantage of the new toy is Phanfare.

This recently funded pho iPhone 3g Bandwagon to-sharing site doubles as a storage and distribution service, and the new iPhone application gives you one-click mobile access to its core features. Photo albums can be created and caption can be added to images directly on your iPhone with the Phanfare app, and then sent off to your accompanying Phanfare account on the web.

Photos are actually taken with the Phanfare application, with the built-in camera tool, which streamlines the process. This means that photos are saved with Phanfare, and accessed on your Phanfare account. The idea behind this all is to remove the PC, as if it were a middleman, in the photo-sharing process. Phanfare wants you to consider your iPhone as you would any other digital camera–except it can send photos out to friends and family.

Once you’ve taken a photo and it’s sent to your web account, it can then be shared with family and friends, as well as through your Facebook application. This distribution to friends and family across the web appears to be automated, based on your settings, through the new iPhone application. In addition to the new iPhone application, Phanfare has also optimized image viewing for the iPhone, using the Safari browser.