I have finally decided to join the Apple cult.

The time had come for my wife and I to upgrade our phones, so we decided to go do it last week. Since becoming addicted to social networking, I have been using my phone to update my Twitter and Facebook accounts, as well as sift for information on the limited web surfing capabilities that the phone had. So going in I knew that I wanted a phone with a full qwerty keyboard and web browser.

In the back of my mind I knew that the iPhone was the best option for this, but vowed to scope out the other phones for the best possible deal. After a couple days of thinking about it I decided that even if I got a phone for free, the discount would not be enough to best the iPhone. Paying the extra money seemed worth it.

And it was very worth it. There are hundreds of reasons why someone should buy an iPhone. I could probably create quite a few hubs about it, but for now I am only going to do one and list three very good reasons why everyone should have an iPhone.

They say that the best things come in small packages. The Apple iPhone comes in the sleekest little package you have ever seen, but don't be fooled by the small size, because the iPhone has everything that you would possibly need.

Everything.

Of course there is the phone itself. The actual act of talking to someone is becoming a dying art, so you may not use this feature as much, but it is there.

Just as most phones do, this one also has a camera. The 3G only shoots still photo's but the 3Gs will shoot still photos as well as video, and it has a better quality camera.

Never miss an email. You can set up just about any email account on your iPhone including all of the popular web based email accounts such as Gmail and Yahoo! Mail. It is very easy to navigate and makes looking at your emails just as simple as if you were doing it in Outlook or Thunderbird. In fact I have a Gmail account set up and looking through the account on the iPhone is easier than doing it on Google's website.

The Apple iPhone is an all inclusive personal planner. The calender is easy to look at and navigate. Adding important dates and appointments is much easier than doing so on a regular cell phone and it is much easier to read when you need to. It also has a great notepad that can actually be formatted so you are not just looking at one long block of text, like on most flip phones.

There is also a voice recorder so you can record important meetings and conversations... or get some blackmail dirt if that is what you really need.

The phone has GPS and a map so you will never get lost, and can easily find directions. You are one click away from the weather report in any city in the world. You can get stock quotes with a quick flick of the finger and set up charts for any stock in your portfolio.

One quick tap and you can browse YouTube's huge library of videos. There is full web surfing capabilities done like no other phone has done before. With the "pinch" method you can easily zoom in and out on a webpage for better viewing.

Of course there is an iPod. No longer do you have to carry your phone and your music player, because now your phone is your music player. It operates just as every other iPod does, but no more annoying disk control. Easily flip through your music and playlists, and podcasts. Don't worry about missing a call while listening to music, because when you have an incoming call it automatically pauses the music and then resumes once the call ends.

You may still use your computer to download music from iTunes, but with the iPhone this is no longer needed. The phone has an iTunes app that comes installed and you can sign in and browse the entire inventory of the iTunes store, and download right to the phone.

Is there something else that you need your phone to do? Well this phone can do it. There are over 25,000 apps that can be downloaded to the phone that do anything and everything.

The Apple iPhone may not have invented everything that a phone can do, but it comes pretty close to perfecting it. This will be the only electronic device that you need to carry around.

You can honestly do everything imaginable on the iPhone.

There are over 25,000 apps available for download from iTunes. There are thousands of apps that are free, many good ones too, as well as apps that range in price. Many are only 99 cents and some can be as expensive as $10, $20, or even more depending on the particular application. Whether or not they are worth the price is up to the users.

You can find apps that will help you balance your check book, keep track of your bills, offer you recipes, let you log your workouts and many other things that just make life easier.

Don't need to make life easier? Would you rather waste some of your life and kill time? Not a problem. There's an app for that. Thousands of games are available. There are simple ones like throwing crumpled paper into a trash can or using your fingers to run a marathon. You can play a Guitar Hero clone or become a vampire or zombie. There are golf games, tennis games, and games for every possible genre.

Many radio stations have apps that stream there radio play right over your iPhone. There are apps that collect books and magazines and everything you could possibly read.

No matter what you want to do, waste time or optimize it, there is an app for that.

Facebook and Twitter have become two of the most popular websites all around the Internet. Myspace is still around too, but not as popular as it once was.

No matter what site or sites you use to keep connected with your friends and make new ones, it seems kind of pointless to be doing it while sitting behind a computer. If you really want to tweet about what is going on in the world than you need to be out there experiencing it.

The iPhone gives you the tools necessary to do this. The keyboard is a little daunting to someone not use to the technology, but you very quickly become accustomed to the qwerty keyboard that pops up on the touch screen. Get the unlimited texting plan and you can update your status and tweet as often as you need to.

And of course, there is an app for that. Facebook and Myspace have there very own free apps that make navigating your accounts just as easy as doing it on the web, and much easier than doing it on the mobile sites used on other phones.

There are a number of Twitter apps, but my favorite is the free Twitterrific. This one actually makes navigating your account easier than doing it on twitter.com. It organizes everything and even color codes your posts based on actions such as replying to another user. You can follow conversations between users without skimming through piles of posts. One option I like is that when you are looking at another users profile, it tells you whether that user s following you or not.

The iPhone is actually the perfect device for social networking on the go. This may be more of a personal preference for me, but I think that many people that use the social networking sites throughout the day will love the features on this phone that make it a breeze to keep up with the cyber world.