As a long-time Palm OS Treo user now on a Cen­tro, I’ve been able to add any third-party appli­ca­tion to my cell phone for years. In fact, before my Cen­tro, one of my biggest prob­lems was fit­ting all of the apps I’d down­loaded on the phone and SD card. So it’s with a high level of amuse­ment that I’ve watched iPhone users extol their new abil­ity to add Apple-sanctioned apps to their phones.

Yes, these folks are hav­ing a blast extend­ing the use­ful­ness of their devices because they can finally install non-Apple-produced soft­ware. While I am indeed chuck­ling to myself a lit­tle, over­all this is a good thing, even if it does work only in a closed sys­tem. Why? Because it’s rais­ing the bar for a larger per­cent­age of the pop­u­la­tion. Expec­ta­tions for inter­act­ing with infor­ma­tion are again chang­ing for mil­lions of peo­ple, and that’s going to change how they expect to inter­act with their libraries, too. It’s great to see folks like Peter Brant­ley think­ing about what this means.

But back to all of the new iPhone app users — wel­come to the world of being able to truly cus­tomize and per­son­al­ize your smart­phone. You no longer have a one-size fits all infor­ma­tion device; instead, you now carry with you every­where a minia­ture com­puter designed just for you. Your life will never be the same again, kind of the way things changed when you received your first email mes­sage or surfed the web for the first time.

In the spirit of wel­com­ing you into the fold, I offer you some time-tested advice about your new best friend that you just can’t seem to put down.

1. You’re in that “wow, look at this app” and “wow, look at that app” phase, which is totally cool. I’ve been there myself, and the wow fac­tor is dif­fi­cult to resist. You should be hav­ing fun now that you can finally add func­tion­al­ity to your phone. I haven’t looked at the iTunes App store myself, and I don’t have an iPhone, so I’m tak­ing a guess these are avail­able, but take advan­tage of the tri­als to find out if you’ll really use an app before you pur­chase it. Exper­i­ment­ing is a good thing.
2. Inevitably, you’ll install some apps now just because you can, and a few months from now you’ll real­ize you’re never actu­ally using some of them. It’s okay to delete them. Really. They’re just tak­ing up room and clut­ter­ing up your inter­face. If you really miss it, you can always go back and add it again.
3. Games are a good thing, and I’m thrilled that you’ll finally be join­ing the portable gam­ing world. Hav­ing one or two games is a great thing, espe­cially if you have kids. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been stand­ing in a line, blood pres­sure ris­ing because I hate wait­ing, and then I started play­ing a game, which helped pass the time much more quickly. My step­kids loved using my phone to play games while wait­ing in long lines, thereby main­tain­ing everyone’s san­ity. I’m look­ing for­ward to see­ing what inno­v­a­tive games appear for this new plat­form, so keep us posted on the best ones as they start appearing.
4. As many of you are already find­ing out, that device in your pocket is now like hav­ing a mini-laptop attached to your hip. But the same way lap­top bat­ter­ies drain with con­stant use, so will your iPhone. So all those apps that are con­stantly check­ing the web — see sug­ges­tion #2 above. If you’re not using it and it’s drain­ing your bat­tery, delete it. Ask your­self if you really need to check email every minute or if it’s bet­ter (and health­ier) to check it every hour or even less. Trust me — all of that email will still be there.
5. Or, as Steve Rubel has sug­gested, turn off the wire­less. You don’t need to be hyper-connected 24/7, and it’s okay to put down the iPhone and walk away from it for a while. It — and all of your apps — will still be there when you get back. As Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben said, “With great power comes great respon­si­bil­ity.” You’re car­ry­ing around a lot of power with you now, but you need to con­trol it, rather than let­ting it con­trol you. Don’t get so caught up in the fun and new-found pro­duc­tiv­ity that you lose the abil­ity to dis­con­nect, or worse yet, focus on the peo­ple you’re with. Basi­cally, remem­ber the axiom that just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.