Yesterday I read about iLike providing a syndication platform to help artists connect with fans through custom iPhone Apps. It seems the commercials don’t lie. “There’s an app for that” is increasingly true. The iLike move reminded me of when web tools first emerged to help people create sites to promote themselves, their business, or whatever. Now it’s happening with iPhone apps.

Then I read a quote pulled from the Buckinster Fuller Challenge website: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

Apple has done that with the app store, and others are following. On the mobile phone, the web browser is being replaced by a new model: apps powered by Internet data. If making apps become easier, and services like iLike facilitate the creation of apps by layman, like a website, every company, brand, and individual will soon have their own mobile app. As if reading my mind, Advertising Age had this article about brands that already have apps: Mobile Marketing: Is ‘App-vertising’ the Answer? Uniqlock, Adidas, Chanel, Audi, Dockers, Burger King seem to think the answer is yes.

But if everyone and brand has an app, like most websites, there will be some that we use often, and many that we don’t. And if apps on mobile phones become more like how we interact with websites, we’ll need tools to help us navigate and manage the system. I have seven full screens of iPhone apps, which make navigation and management a chore. What will happen with more? Sadly, it doesn not seem that Apple has addressed this for iPhone 3.0. I wonder if another soon to be unveiled app store, which promises 20,000 download possibilities, has considered the impact of the shift to apps.

But don’t let this discourage you from creating your own app and adding it to the system. A rush to app overload may speed up the design of new services to solve the problems created by the new model.

My thesis paper presentation was today, and all went well enough. Though I think I confused a few people, and took some heat from Richard Buchanan, who ask if the design knowledge embodied in the knower is not just habit. The answer, of course, is no.

But that’s all behind me, and a bit of a break ahead (or a tonight off, at least).

While I recuperate, entertain yourself with Tufte talking about the iphone. “If the information is in chaos, don’t start throwing out information. Fix the design.”

No, I didn’t buy an iPhone. But I got my hands on one over the weekend and played around with it for a few minutes. First impression. Wow. It’s fun just to navigate around with your finger and spin your contacts up and down. Great interaction. And it looks fantastic. The word on the street is this completely changes everything. And I agree.

(Read Daring Fireball’s complete review.)

I also finally got to play with the Wii this weekend. My first game of boxing was a bit awkward. I got KO’d by some girl I didn’t know and was out of breath at the end. I played a couple more games and found that the interaction for that was great as well. I felt like the knowledge and skills of the real-life sports could be translated and applied to the virtual game. The games weren’t difficult to learn because my body was the controller.

I watched some folks create Miis, and I think there is definitely more potential for visual representations of self that interact in virtual environments. I suppose Second Life is like this, but not quite as accessible to the masses. Perhaps too much so linked to being on a computer. The folks creating Miis seemed to be having the allusive fun that designers strive for. They weren’t just creating avatars of themselves, but extending and exploring what they could be.

How do you design products and services that do that?

Tonight I was at a party in San Francisco and someone from Apple had an iPhone.

At first it seemed like a privileged few got to sneak a peak. But then as the drinks were flowing and the guy with the iPhone wanted to get laid, the phone was on display much more openly.

Naturally, since the guy seemed to be straight, it was mostly being shown to girls.

I didn’t bother to check it out, except in passing. All I think I heard—and I could be wrong—was something about how difficult it was to make something in regards to the Apple logo on the back.

I know. That’s incredible insight.