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Facebook and Meebo introduced new applications for iPhone users this week. I had been awaiting these two apps as, sadly, these are two of my addictions - social networking and chatting.

Facebook

Facebook's typical page would load in my iPhone's Safari browser decently well. Loading the page and surfing around was pretty fast regardless of being on the EDGE or on a Wi-Fi network. However, on Safari, I soon came to realize that I couldn't change or update my "status" and was forever stuck doing whatever it was I was doing in the morning I updated my status. I mean I know my friends want to what I'm doing at all hours of the day, right? I discovered that you could text your status to "FBOOK" and that would take of the problem. However, with Facebook's new iPhone application located at iphone.facebook.com (only accessible if you're on an iPhone), this issue was resolved. The iPhone-specific application's design is slick and less graphically intensive, which is great if you have to access the site via the spotty EDGE network from AT&T. The user-interface is pretty simple and elegant. Friends and updates are given a wide toolbar look and you can navigate without having to enlarge or shrink the page. The top menus feature the most commonly used content. Only drawback is having to enter your login credentials each time you've exited the application/site, but I suppose that's a good security feature as well as not having to maintain an open network connection to an otherwise idle account.

Meebo

I had also been awaiting an iPhone-only application for Meebo (the universal chat Web site that merges and allows you to use the most common chat programs - i.e., AIM, Yahoo, MSN and GTalk. While Meebo's regular page would load up in the iPhone's Safari browser, you couldn't actually send a message or do anything useful once you logged in. So, when I found out that Meebo had created a version for iPhones at wwwm.meebo.com I was stoked. I logged in as usual and was happy to see my friend list appeared and it looked as if I was good to go. The user interface is quite similar to Facebook's iPhone version, horizontal displays for contacts, clean, simple and easy to navigate almost inviting you to ping someone.

But, my test fell short and ended prematurely as after I tried to ping a co-worker an error screen stating "network connection interrupted" and "java application detected" brought me back to the login screen. Two more attempts have been unsuccessful thus far. I'll keep you posted as to how it works out.

Overall, with these two applications coming online, I'm eager to see what else is in the works. It would seem that these two applications have common design elements that are likely to be incorporated for future iPhone applications. While it may be too early to predict, I would have to guess that upcoming iPhone non-Apple applications will be hallmarked by clean, non-scalable pages that display content in that, well, iPhone-way, simply and cleanly, but somewhat lacking... Luckily, however, one sacrifice I don't mind as content is culled down to fit the iPhone is that these pages and applications do not feature as many ads as their PC-based ancestors.

Yesterday, my friends Max and Zach and I were like the Three Amigos, but instead of sombreros we were armed with our iPhones. And instead of adventures with El Guapo, we were doing battle with AT&T's El EDGE network, the network the iPhone defaults to when it can't connect to an active Wi-Fi connection.

Our brave amigo adventure began when we decided to celebrate the Fourth by heading north of San Francisco to hang out at Stinson Beach. We got our fill of sun, surf and sand. During hours in the sun we got out our iPhones to goof around in a sandy environment. The screens were hot to the touch and managed to take sunscreen-soaked fingers pretty well, and there was no effect on performance from what we could tell. The sand didn't scratch up the screen, nor did any get into the ports or small crevasses on the iPhone's body.

So Max and I took pictures of each other and wanted to e-mail them to our mothers and friends. Because you cannot send mass SMS text messages or send a picture embedded in a text message, the only viable option is to send an actual, swear-to-God e-mail. (Many of my friends, recipients of mass SMS text messages, cheered at that limitation. Apple, will you please issue an update to allow me to send mass text messages again?)

Sending e-mails from the beach ultimately tested AT&T's EDGE network. It's at the continent's edge, quite literally. There is no Wi-Fi network for our iPhones to tap. Each of us have synced our contacts to include e-mail addresses, and each of us uses Gmail and our e-mails are sent through Gmail.

So our experience? The sun was pretty intense, so the shadows and the contrast levels really tested the camera's limitations. The pictures turned out fine, but were a bit shadow-heavy (we look "swarthy," according to some). But the EDGE network proved to be hot and cold. One message flew away and the EDGE network proved to be surprisingly fast. But at another point, we got the message "unable to send, cannot connect" and a copy of the e-mail was placed in an outbox queue. (On a separate bike ride it took three hours for my e-mail message to go through, and that only happened after the iPhone found my native W-iFi network!)

Ultimately, it's pretty cool that the phone could take a pretty good picture and e-mail it to loved ones, especially from the beach. The EDGE network is spotty. But if you live somewhere like San Francisco where Google plans to blanket free Wi-Fi to the whole city, or where the iPhone will find every Wi-Fi network around it, and where unsecured Wi-Fi networks are pretty common, then the EDGE issues should be neutralized.