When at the iPhone introduction, Steve announced a “revolutionary internet communications device”, the applause it received was nowhere compared to what Phone and Widescreen iPod received. Looking back at my iPhone usage, I’d say internet communication takes up a huge piece in my iPhone usage chart. Twitter, Email, and the web browser are my killer apps. But there’s other social networks out there, and I thought why not experiment a bit. Since finding content is what we do on the internet, I thought why not start with link sharing networks of Digg, Delicious, and FriendFeed.

I’ve never quite taken to Delicious as a bookmarking service. Using MobileMe I have my crucial bookmarks synced over my Macs, iPhone, and PCs. Besides, what’s this about bookmarks going social? That said, it’s a good resource to find new links, especially if you know how to browse the right tags. That said, there’s no ‘delicious browser’ app for the Mac. Even the official mobile version is a beta mess. There are however two really good personal bookmark browsers however.

Yummy – Delicious – Get it?

Featuring a minimal native interface, you can do three things with Yummy. Browse via Tags, via Date, and Search your bookmarks. It does not in any way allow you to browse anyone else’s tags, or networks, or any of the other ‘social’ features of Delicious. You can however add bookmarks using the app, which is questionable feature for an iPhone app. Tapping into a bookmark will show you the description, tags, and the ability to view that bookmark in an embedded browser. You can also send the link to your twitter client, as well as Instapaper or Read it Later. The one thing that brings down Yummy is its display of extra large titles for bookmarks, and then scrolling them randomly making the whole list look like a swirly mess. The tags are also a single list of tags, with no support for bundles, and no indication as to how many links reside under a tag. Costs $0.99.

Red Delicious

From the house of Mac Appetite, Red Delicious is a little more open to the idea of a social aspect to bookmarking. For one, the bookmarks lists are much better looking (and therefore usable) than Yummy. Arranged as tabs at the bottom, you can switch between Recents, Bookmarks with support for tag bundles, Featured, Search, and More, which for now just shows the account settings.

From a usability standpoint, it’s a tad bit more social than Yummy, since the Featured tab pulls articles from the delicious popular links. Tapping into a link loads up the web view without bringing up the description view. It’s debatable as to which method is better, but there certainly needs to be a way to get to the link description. You can only open the link in Mobile Safari, without any option to copy the link, twitter, or Instapaper. Overall it’s a pleasant app, but lacking in terms of features. I’d like to see more sharing options, and the ability to continue a search over to Delicious instead of just my own bookmarks. The developers have assured me that Instapaper and Twitter, along with more ‘social’ aspects of delicious, are features one can expect in the future (no timeframe given). Costs $1.99.

Tasty

Big brother to all the lil’ ones, Tasty brings in much more of delicious in the palm of your hand. In the Recents tab, you can see your own recents, Fresh, and Popular articles pulled from delicious.com. You can of course browse via tags, with support for tag bundles. Drilling down into a single post, you can actually edit the description, tags, view comments of other users, as well as see a screenshot of the web page in question. You can view the page in a web view, in mobile Safari, or even send it to your twitter client of choice. Tasty tops it off with Inbox and Network support, all packaged in a clean and well thought out interface, making it an overall complete winner in the delicious landscape on the iPhone.

Contrary to some reviews on the App Store, Tasty has been extremely stable in my usage (iPhone 2G running OS 3.0). The only little niggle I have is that there’s hardly any local caching, even while the app has launched. For instance, switching between Recents and Popular tabs makes the app refresh the entire list. The whole app starts afresh every time you re-launch. I’ve been informed that Tasty 2.0, a free update set to release next month, will feature offline usage as well as a full featured search, so it’s definitely heading towards perfection. Costs $4.99.

The most delicious of them all…

For those with an always available fast internet connection, it doesn’t get better than Tasty. It’s fully featured, has a good user interface, and has a roadmap that will negate all of my complaints. However, if you’re looking for simple for access to your personal bookmarks, I’d choose Red Delicious over Yummy for the better user experience. Yummy’s swirly titles are just plain dizzying. That said, if Instapaper or Read it Later support are features you require to have a in your delicious client, Yummy is the only one which has it. Given that no timeframe was provided for it to be implemented in Red Delicious, you might be waiting a while. Ultimately, I’m just the facilitator; you have to make the decision based on your needs. Any questions?

[Header img via Flickr—which is too beautiful to be ruined by text]