When I dropped my iPhone to transition to the Blackberry Storm, I spent the first several months trying to find applications for the blackberry that gave me the same simplistic information I got on the iPhone. Even being 2 years removed from using the iPhone as my primary day to day phone, I still miss the built-in Calendar, Stocks, Weather, and Maps. They are so fundamentally simple most people often search for another program that provides richer information. Let me explain the aspects of each of these programs I like the most.
Calendar
I love the calendar program in a closed state but the moment it is opened, I hate every thing about it. What I do like is when the phone is unlocked, I can quickly look at the app and get today’s date. On the Blackberry and Android, that simple detail is non-existent. On Windows mobile it is pretty prominent. I have no doubt this sounds silly but I loved the small effort Apple added to make the calendar show the date. The value of this feature is in the simplicity.
Stocks
The stocks application was not available when I got the iPhone Mobile Etrade Pro but I still wanted to have visibility to my portfolio. In no way shape or form can the Stocks app on the iPhone hold a candle to Mobile Etrade Pro but it provides just the information I wanted. First, you get an at-a-glance view of all your stocks and the current market price. If you rotate the phone to landscape, you get your running charts for a single stock for multiple time ranges. Finally, my other favorite is if you select a stock in portrait mode you can see open, high, low, volume, P/E and other stats. I am not a professional trader I just want quick access to my investments. This is some of the stuff I look at on the computer pushed down to a mobile.
Weather
Most of my friends such as Robb Dunewood at RIMarkable cannot stand the Weather App on the iPhone as it lacks the hour-by-hour forecast for today. Oddly enough for someone traveling all I care about is what the temperature is at my destination and will it rain. For me it says pack a sweat shirt, jacket, coat, umbrella; bring boots vs dress shoes; ice scraper for the rental. You get my point. I am sure that Chris the Windows Phone bodyguard, would give me 
grief because his Tilt 2 does both today’s weather hour by hour and for the week. My need for weather on my mobile is super simple, Sun/Rain or Hot/Cold. Just like the calendar app, the Weather app on the iPhone does show me at a glance temp basic forecast. This again is so simple to do and Apple did it well.
Maps
Let me take a quick second to laugh at Chris because I know he hates Bing on Windows Phone ßadd link to my post. I used the maps program to help with navigation but it is not on par with my Motorola Droid. What is amazing is the share location feature. This must be an Apple Feature as they did not include this on the maps program on Android. I often found myself traveling with friends that needed to find me. Rather then getting restaurant names and addresses, I just sent my location details and said I am at this bar or restaurant and here is the GPS location. See you soon. Regardless to having an iPhone, they could locate me provided they used Google Maps For me.
The iPhone is packed with tons of small features that can go unnoticed unless you pay attention. I think my wife was happy to see my iPhone go as it was in my pocket 24/7 and I constantly looked up information on the device. How can you blame me when the built-in apps provided such value at a glance.
