Top 8 iPhone Sites

After several months with the iPhone, I feel I’m ready to share the “best sites optimized for the iPhone.”

1. Facebook
The Facebook iPhone site was not only online very early, but it’s extremely slick, performs pretty quickly, retains “back” button function, and feels native.

2. Picasa Web Albums
Google’s Picasa Web Albums has certainly been a bittersweet experience for me, but their iPhone interface is sweet. This slot really should go to Google’s entire “M” suite, which includes Search, Gmail, Reader, Calendar, Docs, and more.

3. Bloglines
Bloglines’ new iPhone interface is very cool, and although it only loads 5 stories at a time, it works extremely well. I’ve used it to catch up on literally hundreds of items without a problem, and I’ve been very happy with its performance.

4. Food Network
I bet you didn’t even know these guys had an iphone interface. The Food Network not only built this site with the iPhone navigation feel, but they successfully implanted their own style onto it. What makes it so cool? How about an entire video library in iPhone-compatible mp4 format?

5. Amazon.com
Ah, Amazon. Although you have certainly been a jerk at times, I still love you. See, you were the best and smartest website online in 1998, and then you kinda sucked through a few of your redesigns. But now, with S3 and your new site, you’re cool again. And now that you sniff my UA string and give my iPhone an optimized experience, you’ve really made me happy.

6. eBay
eBay. I rarely use you anymore, because all I ever seem to get are emails from people wanting me to accept an exorbitant amount of money over the Buy-It-Now price to end my auction early and ship my items to Nigeria or Turkey. But you do provide a valuable service, and now that I can use a slick iPhone friendly interface to browse you, I might actually buy something again sometime.

7. Digg.com
Digg for iPhone. Not much more to say other than the fact that Digg minus prototype and scriptaculous minus Flash video site integration equals a much faster, much easier to read Digg.

8. SmugMug
Another photo sharing site, but this time, a more community oriented one. SmugMug did a bang up job with their iPhone site, and it’s gorgeous, although a little slower than other photo sites.