It seems like every time I go to a party or an event where people are taking pictures more and more folks are taking pictures with their mobile phones. The iPhone is one of the most popular devices on the market and as such, many of these mobile phone photos are taken on the iPhone.

HP has announced a new app for the iPhone that is available now on the App Store for free. The app is called HP iPrint Photo and allows users to print images directly from their iPhone to Wi-Fi equipped HP printers.

Google has officially announced the availability of Google Earth to use straight from your iPhone or iPod Touch, and so far reports are that it’s not too shabby. When a good data connection is available the geographical software streams to the device relatively quickly and not only makes use of the phones full display but also it’s functionality.

Multi-touch enables users to zoom in or out of a map with ease and even rotate the map on the screen. A compass in the corner helps keep your bearings. Tilting the iPhone will change the angle of the view to better see the topology of the current terrain, and “My Location” feature will bring the map right to your current location on Earth. Google also of course incorporated their search engine to find information on local businesses and the surrounding area, and built in Panoramio and Wikipedia to get articles and pictures from near your current locale.

For a long time one of the things that drove users of cell phones to upgrade to newer devices was the addition of a camera. Today, pretty much every cell phone produced features a camera built-in. Typically, these cameras aren’t that high quality, but work in a pinch to take pictures on the fly. However, applications are starting to surface the take the use of a cell phone camera to new levels.

A good example is a new application available today for the Apple iPhone via the Apple App Store called ScanLife. The application allows iPhone users to take pictures of 2-D barcodes with the iPhone camera, and then link to more information about the product associated with barcode. According to Scanbuy — the maker of the ScanLife application — ScanLife can launch any URL address.