Application launchers always seem to do good business on smartphones and mobile devices, perhaps because they tap both into users’ innate desire to customise and because device makers themselves don’t do an especially good job of organising programmes (yes, the iPhone is very easy to use when you’re sticking with the applications preloaded, but what about the handful of web-based apps you like?)  So it’s no surprise to see a couple for the iPhone emerge, but which should you choose?

First up is MockDock, which when viewed on a normal computer looks faintly ridiculous but should be ideally proportioned for you iPhone Safari users.  While I don’t have an iPhone myself, you can use it on a desktop browser; it’s basically a page you bookmark (and likely make as your homepage) with a gallery of finger-friendly icons to build a customised launch page from.  There are quite a few programmes and shortcuts available already, but seemingly no way to add your own unless you email them and ask for inclusion.

Alternatively there’s Mojits - described as “mobile widgets” – and which follows the same idea as MockDock by building a customised palette of shortcuts.  What’s different is that you can create your own Mojits rather than rely on the programmers themselves to do it; there’s a growing gallery of user-generated widgets to choose from.

Both Mojits and MockDock are free to register and use, and while the easy customisation of the former seems to make it stand out it’s early days for any iPhone application and who knows what’s planned for the platform over the coming months.