As more and more 3rd-party applications are added to the App Store, I feel that it is becoming harder and harder, are more time-consuming, to wade through the offerings, and actually end up buying the ones I really want and can use. In the beginning, with the initial offering, it was easy for me to quickly check on the apps. But now, with so many that are constantly being added, the once happy task is becoming somewhat of a burden.

To check for new offerings, most of us now primarily rely on what pops up at the online store on ITunes, which as we know, is refreshed every Tuesday. While most of what may be deemed the best or the finest or the latest of the crop comes to fore, organized in relevant contextual sections on the main page of the online store, it is not uncommon to feel that, somehow, we might be missing many others. And so, we patiently dig through links and links in the store, spending so much time looking up each individual application page, and assessing the quality based on the product description, ratings, and the oftentimes colorful and colored feedback of other iPhone users who may or may not have bought the apps.

Another way, which I recently discovered, on how to check for iPhone apps is to go to Apple's download page. Because of the way the download page is organized, its presentation is somehow surprisingly different from what I see in iTunes and the iPhone. The same apps are there, but Apple's download page gives me a different view, and hopefully a more encompassing one, than if I were to rely just on looking at them at the App Store in iTunes and iPhone.

It's interesting how we learn about new applications. If your experience is the same as mine, my interest gets piqued through the casual recommendations and demonstrations of other iPhone users. Likewise, I have unearthed gems by reading reviews, notes and press announcements from various websites. And lately, subscribing to podcasts that reviews iPhone apps has somewhat been helpful as well.

First impression, they say, is lasting. And for all intents and purposes, the application's icon (as well as the name) is the very first thing that attracts or repels me to it. When I see an interesting, well-designed, and professionally-made icon, I find myself getting interested, which leads me to investigate it more. The application's icon is actually now my short-hand way of wading through the growing number of applications. If the icon is awfully designed, I tend to dismiss it.

I'm not sure how many third-party applications that users have installed in their iPhones, and how many of these applications end up being used on a regular basis. If at the rate I am downloading and installing, and then using, the applications, I would imagine that most iPhone users have about a hundred or so installed apps, but they end up using only about a third of them. If you ask me which of these applications I use often, these are mostly those with well designed icons. A well designed icon, therefore, to me at least, is almost synonymous to a well-designed application. And true enough, the reverse is also true. The ones that I don't use, the useless ones, are those with poorly designed icons, which, I involuntarily wince whenever I see them.

It's fair to say that developers do the best they can when creating applications. But with focus on the development, designing the "look" of their applications, beginning with the icons, maybe the last thing on their mind. While they may be exceptionally talented coders, I don't want to say that they don't have talent for visual design. All I want to say is that developers should probably consider hiring creative professionals to do the icon design and the look-feel of their software.

What makes for a great icon? There are 4 elements that I think developers should consider to make it visually appealing:

1. Simplicity. Some of the best icons that I have seen have a simple and straightforward design. These are icons that use letters, graphics and symbols that are not cluttered, can easily be understood, and are generally pleasing to the eyes.

2. Colors. The icons I have come to really love are those that sport a basic color scheme. Most of these icons typically do not have more than 3 colors, including shadings.

3. Meaningful. The design, together with how it is named, gives me a sense of what the application is about and what I can expect it to be.

4. Professional. The execution of the icon's design is professionally done. There is that element of sophisticated styling and a very polished finish.

When upgrading to a newer version, I noticed that a few of the applications I have already been using have new and better icons. (Other than the fact that some of the these apps have a new or different name as well.) The developers, along the way, may have deemed it necessary or important to change the icons, hence, to upgrade the "look" and "feel" of their apps. For sure, the developers who have done so understand that a beautifully designed icon, its packaging, is one of the ways to attract more interest to their software product. Redesigning an application's icon is a way to catch more attention, and, consequently, to sell more.

If there was to be an icon design award for iPhone apps, I would certainly nominate the following as some the apps with the best icons (in no particular order, as they say): Loopt, Yelp, 1Password, eBay, NYTimes, Sol Free, QuickVoice, Bejeweled 2, Zintin, CraigsMobile, FiatLux, AOL Radio, YPmobile, Pandora, Evermore, Jolt, WhitePages, WritingPad, Recorder, Facebook, Shazam, TypePad, Tumble, LifeCast, Simplify, Tris, Comic Touch, Trism, WeDict, Where, Bloomberg, WordPress, OmniFocus, BlackBook, AirMe, AIM, Google, BofA, AirSharing, AirYell, MProfs, Bookmarks, Palringo, FileMagnet.