Oh yeah, feels like new again. Today I downloaded the new firmware for my iPhone and in case you haven’t been following my tweets, pownces, plurks, or friendfeed I am very satisfied. I haven’t felt this good about the device since I originally bought it, of course jail breaking it did feel good too but now these apps are leaps and bounds ahead of the original third party apps. Now I have something to hold me over until the AT&T 3G network stretches to my neck of the woods.

Of course I hit all the free apps first and most of those were to all my social networks. Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, and Pownce all have apps and I have a feeling that I may be using most of those more than their actual websites. All of these social apps allow use of the camera or your photo library to upload pics right to their site. They also speed up the delivery and surfing of all the essential data related to those sites i.e. who is eating cheese, who is playing with their new iPhone, and who is in the shower.

Another notable free app is the weather bug which far exceeds the included weather app. Now you can see which way the wind is blowing, radar maps, and any weather alerts.

The list of free apps that wouldn’t be complete without Apple’s own remote for iTunes and the Apple TV. Now you can surf and control the media in your library just like you are using an iPod. This will be handy in those party situations when you want to have your iPhone on you but still be in control of the tunes.

There are a few familiar programs in the app store that you may have seen in installer.app. I will look forward to supporting as soon as I have a few extra bucks lying around; Band, Mobile Flickr, and Sketches to name a few. I’m still looking for cameraPro or Snapture as I feel they include many features that are missing from the iPhones camera like a self timer. SummerBoard would also be nice as I like to customize the look of the icons and the dock.

One new app I went out and bought was the new MLB app. This app is a must for anyone who spends as much time refreshing baseball scores. It also has the option to watch video highlights of the games. You still have to use mlb.com to view the play by play, hopefully that comes in the form of an update soon.

I could go on and on about all the new apps but the jist of the situation is that all in all I am happier than ever with my old iPhone. I will someday go out and replace it but as it is I feel now I am in no hurry. Since I don’t have access to 3g I don’t feel like paying an extra $10 a month to have fewer text messages and a useless 3Gcard in my phone. The fact that it has GPS doesn’t sell me on the new one either as I have already noticed a big improvement in the “current location” that is already in google maps.

With the new Pownce support you can view your friends public notes and replies inline with your Twitter and Facebook friends status updates. The biggest update is the ability to post to Pownce which until I have more time will only be public notes. Not only can you post to Pownce but you have the option to post the same message to twitter if you like or choose to post only to twitter. (posting your facebook status is a bit far off yet)

Currently If you want to reply to a pownce post it will redirect you to either the Pownce website or Pownce mobile depending on if you are on an iPhone or not. (Again I will change this when I have time).

I have also added a cache so that you can let 1stat.us run it’s auto refresh in the background and it will hold up to 100 of the newest tweets, notes, and statuses until you come back to it. You can do what I do and leave it open in your docked iPhone so you can see if there is any thing new.

Along with the new features I gave 1stat.us a new look. Each site is represented by it’s own color border and links so you can tell where it is coming from.

A lot more is in store for the site so bear with me as I’m doing this in my spare time.

Pownce is the product of Leah Culver, Daniel Burka, Shawn Allen, and digg founder Kevin Rose. Like Twitter and Jaiku it lets you update your friends with messages though here are are not limited to 140 characters. You also have the choice of sending a link, a file, event, or just a message. Not only that but you can also group your friends into sets and send messages to a set of friends, a individual friend, or out to the public. The sets I can see being handy being a twitter addict and only wanting to say something to a few people on my list i.e. co-workers, on-line friends, family. The friend feature works a lot like Twitter and Jaiku in the fact people can follow you without you having to be their friend. There is a pro option that allows you to send 100mb files instead of the 10mb limit imposed on the free users and no advertisements for $20 a year.

Pownce also has harnessed the power of air (adobe integrated runtime) to build a desktop program. It is a nice little program that could use a few more features but as it is still in alpha mode so I’m sure they will be adding them shortly. Kevin Rose already announced on Pownce yesterday that they are working on making the desktop program self updating along with the fact that more invites will be coming soon after the next version (don’t ask me for an invite yet, I don’t have any). The desktop program did have some connection issues from time to time but I’m thinking that has to do with the 15,000 invite requests Pownce received in the first 24 hours of existence.

The only thing I see keeping me away from Pownce is the lack of sms text messaging which is one of the main ways I use twitter. I’ll just have to see how it works with my cell phone.

I found my way into Pownce when a tweet came my way about a live diggnation feed on Zooomr being broadcasted from the Apple Store in Palo Alto with everyone camping out for the iPhone. After diggnation Robert Scoble took over with the guys from Zooomr and it seemed like everyone from Silicone Valley stopped by. I am excited to see what comes from Pownce and Zooomr but with so many different web services these days it is becoming hard to keep track of them all.