For the moment, though, Apple is doing much better than anyone in the space, really. The latest comScore report, which covers a three month period from September to December of 2009, shows Apple as having 25.3 percent of the total smartphone market share, up 1.2 points from 24.1 percent at the beginning of the period measured.

Research In Motion (RIM) came in first place overall once again, with 41.6 percent of U.S. smartphone subscribers opting for a BlackBerry device. But that number represented a slide, ultimately, as RIM began the measurement period with 42.6 percent. Microsoft and Palm likewise slipped, with MS dropping from 19 to 18 percent, and Palm losing 2.2 points, down to 6.1 percent.

Google had the lowest market share of the bunch, with 5.2 percent of subscribers. But that number was up from only 2.5 percent in September, suggesting that it was probably helped along considerably with the introduction of the Motorola Droid. 2.7 points also represents the largest market share grab made by any smartphone manufacturer over the period of the report, so Google is indeed the company Apple needs to be most worried about.

Palm is probably the company everyone needs to be least worried about. The Pre and Pixi maker lost almost as much market share as Google gained, and was the only company on the list to post such a significant loss of ground. The Pre Plus and Pixi Plus could alter its fortunes, but I honestly can’t see customers who were disappointed with the originals going back for more at this point.

Going forward, Apple’s main concern is going to be with Google and how it fares now that it’s begun taking more control over its own smartphone future. The Nexus One drastically undersold the iPhone both in the first week and in the first month, so that’s got to be good news for Apple. That said, Google is doing something pretty much unprecented with regards to smartphone sales in the U.S., and it’s only selling the device in the U.S. as of yet. Apple had the advantage of selling its device through AT&T when it launched, which was an established sales and marketing channel for such devices already.

Apple’s growth over the period measured in the comScore report remains impressive, though, given that it had not introduced a new smartphone model since much, much earlier in the year. Google’s rise can be almost entirely attributed to the initially strong sales of the Motorola Droid, which was arguably the “it” device of the pre-Christmas season.

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Although the picture below is from CERN, it’s much more akin to a boring office space than a scientific laboratory. However, look a little closer and you might notice something out of the ordinary. It seems that some of the research at CERN may be powered by Apple.

The scientists over at CERN are doing some serious research, using data from the Large Hadron Collider for something called the Compact Muon Solenoid Experiment. While it’s not clear if this is an officially sanctioned MacBook, using Apple gear for scientific research is nothing new.

Drew McCormack is Chief Developer over at The Mental Faculty. Alongside creating apps for Mac and iPhone to aid learning, he’s also a board member of MacResearch.org, an independent community of scientists using Apple software and hardware for their research.

Drew took a moment to explain why Apple is on the rise in the scientific community, “There has been a trend over the last few years in US Universities for students to buy a MacBook or MacBook Pro. This has given Apple a leg up in higher education.”

Mac’s aren’t just for science students though, as Drew explains, “The rise in student uptake of Macs is gradually leading to more and more interest in Macs as scientific workstations. A Mac can be used to answer email, surf the web, and write scientific articles, but it can equally run high-performance calculations. This is due to the UNIX underpinnings of Mac OS X, and more recently to Apple’s emphasis on performance in Snow Leopard. Technologies like OpenCL and Grand Central are very attractive to scientists who need to crunch numbers.”

Over the coming years, perhaps we’ll see a few scientific breakthroughs made possible by Apple devices, that is if the LHC doesn’t trigger the end of the universe and ultimate destruction of humankind first.

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I’m not going to debate the merits of upgrading with you, since I’m sure you’ve already wrestled with that particular demon yourself, but I did want to take a look at the gaming side of Apple’s new 3GS, and the amazing potential it boasts for bringing cell phone gaming to even more lofty heights. I knew it was better at handling graphics, but just how much better only became really clear yesterday, thanks to a post at Gizmodo looking at how the 3GS handles hardware emulation.

In short, it handles it very well. Much more adeptly than its predecessor, the 3G, in fact. ZodTTD, homebrew coder extraordinaire and jailbreak enthusiast, recently managed to get his Playstation console emulator running on a new 3GS, and the performance gap between it, and the same program running on a 3G, provides a tantalizing hint at what could be coming in the near future for 3GS gaming enthusiasts.

The results are amazing. The 3GS runs PSX game Final Fantasy VII flawlessly, albeit in a tiny space, since the screen is mostly taken up by clunky controls. ZodTTD demos the game in action in the YouTube video included below, so you can see for yourself. Sadly, none of the game’s lavish cutscenes were included, which really would’ve provided an accurate measure of the hardware’s capabilities.

Even without cutscenes, this performance beats the same game running on the same emulator on the iPhone 3G by a wide margin. So far, developers seem reluctant to exclude 3G users by developing games specifically for the 3GS, and instead claim that some games will scale based on your hardware capability. I think it’s only a matter of time, though, before some companies start taking the lead in 3GS exclusive development, a move which Apple will likely want to encourage from a product differentiation standpoint.

Add to better first-party hardware in the 3GS the ability to connect with third-party devices via the dock connector interface and over Bluetooth, and you have a recipe for a great gaming machine that can match, or even exceed, the likes of the PSP and DSi in terms of both core and casual gaming. The oddly themed GameBone Pro appears to be the first such device on the horizon, but I’m sure it won’t be the last. It’s a controller with a built-in battery, microphone and speakers that uses new hardware device access APIs in the 3.0 SDK to control your phone.

It’s a nice start, but as Kotaku points out, companies will have to build support into their apps if they want players to be able to use the device. So before we see a truly useful iPhone controller, industry players will have to agree on a coding specification that third-party hardware makers can then use in all of their devices.

With third-party device access, and much improved graphics capability, Apple has opened the doors for an unrivaled gaming experience on the iPhone. Let’s just hope developers are up to the challenge.

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As a mobile device, the iPhone crosses several different user groups. From business users to media junkies, a wide range of people use the iPhone in a variety of different ways. The App Store is fueling this variation even further on account of the huge array of different applications available.

A few pieces of research have been conducted that give an interesting glimpse into the profile of iPhone users, and the main activities they choose to perform with their device. This post will summarize a few different results and draw some interesting comparisons between the uses of an iPhone compared to other mobile phones.

Compete.com Survey

Compete.com has recently gathered a collection of data surrounding the use of the iPhone. They found that:

• iPhone owners are twice as likely as other Smartphone owners to be comfortable with advertising within the applications on their device.
• 33 percent of iPhone owners use maps and GPS more than ten times a month, compared to 13 percent of Smartphone owners.
• Almost twice as many iPhone owners than Smartphone users complete at least one financial transaction on their mobile device each month.
• 93 percent of iPhone owners have added an application versus only 66 percent of Smartphone owners.

The statistics relating to increased map usage are most likely due to the implementation of Google Maps software — it’s slick, easy to use and very intuitive. The other statistics are more interesting, and worth considering a little further.

The fact that 93 percent of owners have added an application is a very impressive figure. Considering the App Store has been open for only a few months, such a high awareness and take-up rate is excellent. It comes down to a combination of a very successful marketing campaign from Apple, coupled with a system that is incredibly easy to use. Applications are easy to find, often inexpensive, and as evidenced by the number of users downloading them, add real value to the iPhone.

The statistic relating to financial transactions comes as an initial surprise — why would users feel safer conducting online banking on their iPhone? I think this is one advantage that comes from a mobile browser based on a desktop counterpart. Apple users who surf with Safari on their Mac are likely to instinctively trust the security and reliability of the mobile version — feeling comfortable accessing their finances online.

Finally, the issue of advertising is an interesting one. This could be down either to the type of user (corporate Blackberry users may recoil quicker at the idea of advertising compared to media-savvy, younger consumers), or the fact that Mac users are more familiar with the concept from ad-supported desktop software (e.g. Twitteriffic). I suspect the former is likely to be the case, with iPhone users preferring to accept a free, ad-supported application rather than paying for it directly.

Rubicon Consulting Research

A recent survey entitled ‘The Apple iPhone: Successes and Challenges for the Mobile Industry’ looked at the profile of iPhone users. They found that:

• The iPhone user base consists mainly of young early adopters about three quarters of whom are previous Apple customers.
• 50 percent of iPhone users are under thirty, and 15 percent are students.
• Half of the iPhone users replaced conventional mobile phones (commonly the Motorola Razr) while 40 percent replaced other smartphones (such as Blackberrys and Windows Mobile devices).
• Email is the most commonly used feature — 70 percent of users check email on the iPhone at least once a day
• 60 percent of users browse the internet at least once per day
• Three quarters of users do more web surfing on the iPhone than on their previous device.

It should be noted that this survey was conducted just prior to the introduction of the iPhone 3G — so some figures may have changed since then. However, the general trends and conclusions are still likely to be valid.

The fact that iPhone users are young and ‘tech savvy’ does not come as a particular surprise. Nor does the concept that previous Apple customers are more likely to buy an iPhone (especially as an Apple customer is anyone who has bought an iPod — over 163 million have been sold).

The split of switchers from both conventional and smart phone users is interesting. It shows clearly that the iPhone has succeeded in targeting both types of user well, catering equally to business users requiring email and web capabilities as well as those more interested in photos, videos and music. This is no mean feat, showing that the latest Exchange features are beginning to bring the iPhone into an enterprise setting.

The Typical iPhone User

Essentially, none of these statistics are particularly startling, though they do go a long way towards providing definite proof for ideas we have taken for granted (i.e. that the well implemented Mobile Safari browser will stimulate greater use of mobile internet).

Would you say that your iPhone usage echoes the findings of the above surveys, or do some of the statistics come as a surprise?

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