As you probably know, today is the day crazy people from all over the world (myself included) will line up at Steve Jobs' door to get the new iPhone 3G.  Exciting to be sure, and most of the media hype has been about the new phone.  But very little has been said about the free updates available to existing iPhone owners.  Specifically, today at 8:00 AM EST, Apple will release a software upgrade -- iPhone 2.0 -- that will add a few new features, and enable access to the very exciting App Store.

The App Store is where you can download the zillions of new native applications designed specifically for the iPhone.  Until now, only the brave souls willing to hack their phones could install applications.  Apple has now made it legit, and has created a way-cool marketplace for such add-ons.  Most of the applications are free, the balance average around $9 with a range between $0.99 and $29.  You'll need to download and install the new iTunes 7.7 before you can download any of the applications.

Under the Music category, I've found some pretty neat applications.  There are a handful of (not surprisingly) guitar tuners available.  Two of my favorites are shown below.  

 I also found an application titled "Band" that is a collection of virtual instruments that let you create music from scratch.  Each instrument has been designed to take advantage of the unique touchscreen of the iPhone, with complex chords of up to five notes playable in real-time.  All instruments can be recorded and overdubbed multiple times, and mixed together into a final track, which can be saved for later playback.  No word yet about being able to export to a file on your PC.  

Another application titled "Drummer" turns your iPhone or iPod Touch into a drum kit, bongos, congas, and more.  The application reports to have high-quality drum sounds (many in stereo), a full drum kit, a gong, triangle, cowbell, timapni, and more.

There are many more applications available.  In fact, I was quite impressed with the number  available on launch day.  In the music category alone, there are 28 applications available today for download.  There are many times that many available in other categories.

Oh no!  It's 8:10 AM -- I'm late for the iPhone 3G grand opening!

UPDATE: I installed the iPhone 2.0 Firmware update this morning. It took nearly 1 hour to complete the process. Most of that time was consumed by the backup process, and then the restore of the music and videos I had loaded. The entire process was all handled by the install program (I only had to click once to kick off the setup). I've installed a few apps and all seems fine.