Hasta La Gadget!

A new survey from Comscore shows that the iPhone has jumped ahead of the ailing Windows Mobile in the US. Comscore measured actual ownership instead of sales figures (as in “What phone do you use?”). RIM’s Blackberry still comes out on top, but in October  Apple jumped ahead of Microsoft, with almost nine million users to Windows’ 7 million.

And remember, Apple has just the three generations of the iPhone and the iPod Touch, while Windows Mobile has been shipping on a whole range of devices for several years. Interestingly, although Palm comes in ahead of Symbian and Google (Android), these figures discount the Pre WebOS as there just aren’t enough Pres out there to show on the charts.

With manufacturers like HTC, traditionally a big WinMo handset maker, defecting to Android (HTC makes the Nexus phone for Google), Microsoft had better watch out. As the mobile market grows and slowly pushes out the desktop and laptop computer, Windows’ stranglehold on the computer industry will continue to slip.

What were the top smartphone operating systems in October? [Fierce Developer via Cult of Mac]