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Jumptap illustrated the breakdown of iOS, Android, and Blackberry use across the United States

Do you live in an iOS, Android, or Blackberry state — or neither?

From mobile ad network Jumptap comes this colorful infographic showing us which states lean more towards Android, iOS, or Blackberry dominance, or if they’re primarily neutral. Pleasant change from those political right-leaning or left-leaning US maps.

From the map, it looks like Android tends to lead the way in the western United States, while the southeast is pretty smartphone neutral. The midwest and northeast seemingly prefer phones of the Apple variety, except for New York, which is all-business according to its Blackberry dominance.

Statistics over the past few months continue to show that Android is leading in smartphone marketshares in the US, but it’s interesting to see that information broken down individually by state.

Jumptap’s report on state-by-state mobile phone usage also revealed that in their network, Android dominates with a 38 percent market share, trailed closely by iOS with 33 percent and Blackberry with 22 percent. Their statistics also show that iOS users tend to have higher ad click-through rates than users of other smartphones (.78 percent for iOS, as opposed to .47 or .36 percent for Android or Blackberry).

I’d be interested to see how this information broke down within some of the more populous, technophilic states like California and New York. Does it vary region by region? Do LA residents tend toward iOS, while San Franciscans prefer Android? I’d also like to see this overlaid with information about the dominant carrier in that area. Does Android do best in areas with strong Verizon coverage, for instance.

via TechCrunch

Gmail for mobile was looking a little tired around the eyes, so Google went ahead and gave the ol’ web app a cosmetic lift. The update, announced on the Gmail blog, packs a hat trick’s worth of tweaks aimed squarely at iOS and QNX (read: BB PlayBook) users. Email messages can now be manually refreshed with a top-down pull and release — a feature similar to Twitter’s own drag-down approach. The team also added a bit of finesse to inbox navigation with new sliding transitions, and even beefed up the graphical interface, taking full advantage of that Retina Display. Curious to see these tune-ups in action? Then head to the source for your own hands-on.

Gmail for Mobile gets a facelift, now ready for its Retina Display close-up originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Aug 2011 14:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Find My Mac, perfect for stalkers everywhere. Picture: Mac Rumors

Apple has switched on Find My Mac, a feature from the upcoming iCloud service which lets careless or unlucky Mac owners track down their computers. Currently in beta, for testing by OS X Lion developers, Find My Mac works a lot like the iOS app Find My iPhone.

Instead of using GPS to work out where the Mac is, Lion instead uses other location info such as that from nearby Wi-Fi networks (and probably the external IP address, too). Once the Mac-less user has logged in to Find My Mac on the iCloud Web site, he can see his computer’s location on a map, send a message to it, lock the computer’s screen from afar, and even perform a remote wipe of the hard drive. This last, combined with Lion’s new full-disk encryption, makes for some powerful security.

When enabled, users will also be able to track their lost or stolen Macs from the comfort of their iPhone or iPad using the Find My iPhone app.

The service should go live for everyone as soon as iCloud is released in September. Until then, try not to get too drunk when you take your brand new MacBook out with you for the night. Yes, I’m looking at you, Cult of Mac’s John Brownlee.

Find My Mac Goes Live For Developers [Mac Rumors]

See Also:

• How to Activate Find My iPhone for iOS 4
• Apple's 'Find my iPhone' App Almost Impossible to Use
• Apple iOS 4.2 Arrives, Makes Find My iPhone Free
• Find My IPhone

The Chrome Web Store welcomed a new arrival today, and it goes by the name of appMobi XDK. While the addition is targeted squarely at developers, it’s entirely free and packs quite a doozy — cross-platform HTML5 software development from within the web browser. As you might expect, the tool is perfect for making applications to run within Google Chrome, but get this… it’s also capable of creating native apps for submission to Apple’s App Store and the Android Market. Like any competent development environment, it features a full set of debugging tools, along with the ability to test your apps via on-screen emulation and directly from your target device. Hardware integration is accomplished with JavaScript hardware abstraction, which enables access to the camera, GPS, accelerometer and the like. Further, the platform boasts full compatibility with PhoneGap, which means you can easily transition if you’ve got a project in the works. If you’re already hooked, be sure to check out the PR after the break, which describes such goodies as in-app purchasing and secure user authentication, which are made possible with appMobi’s cloud services.

Continue reading appMobi XDK delivers free cross-platform dev environment to Chrome Web Store

appMobi XDK delivers free cross-platform dev environment to Chrome Web Store originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Aug 2011 01:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mac OS X Lion merges some aspects of iOS with the Mac environment, like the new Launchpad feature for launching apps.

OSX Lion has already begun to blur the lines between Mac and iOS. But in a note to investors today first reported by Barron’s, a Jefferies & Co. analyst believes the two will completely merge by 2012.

How will this be accomplished? On the hardware end, analyst Peter Misek posits that Apple could use the A6 quad-core processor to unify its mobile and computing devices.

“We believe Apple is ready to start sampling the A6 quad-core app processor and will be the first to such multi-device platform capable of PC-like strength,” Misek says.

We’ve already said that it’s possible that Apple plans to eventually eliminate its professionally-targeted device lines, especially since size is such a determining factor in consumer purchases now. Having one unified experience across devices, especially when they’re so similar in size (11-inch MacBook Air? 10-inch iPad? Completely different user experiences?), would certainly make sense and simplify consumers’ computing. OSX Lion, which debuted recently, married some aspects of iOS with Mac OSX, but a little less successfully than many had hoped. And more widespread cloud-based storage like iCloud will keep things smooth and consistent no matter what device you’re using.

One of the key points Misek’s note makes in Apple’s merging of the two distinct operating systems (well, slightly less distinct now with OSX Lion) is that Apple hopes to provide a seamless experience for its users across multiple devices.

“Users want to be able to pick up any iPhone, iPad, or Mac (or turn on their iTV) and have content move seamlessly between them and be optimized for the user and the device currently being used,” he says in the note. If OS X and iOS are separate entities, that’s more difficult to accomplish.

And by using a single processor type across handheld devices like the iPhone, as well as larger ones like the MacBook Air, implementing that single, unified OS becomes much more straightforward than needing to adapt it to different chipsets. Of course, higher-end products like the iMac or MacBook pro may require a little bit longer to completely merge into this ARM-based ecosystem.

“Apple can use a 32-bit ARM architecture to address the vast majority of the OS X ecosystem’s needs in 2012-13 except for high-end professional devices,” Misek wrote in his note. “When 64-bit ARM is available in 2016, we believe Apple will have a single OS and hardware architecture.” Rumors about Apple switching to using ARM architecture in both its MacBook Airs and Macs have persisted for a while now.

In addition to making sense for users, unifying OSX and iOS would also benefit Apple. iAd would have a significantly larger audience. App developers would potentially have less differentiation to deal with between products, especially now that HTML 5 is really taking off. Misek believes lower research and development costs would be required as well, as innovation would be performed on a single OS instead of paralleled across multiple ones, and content licensing would become a more streamlined process.