NetMarketShare’s desktop Operating System Market Share metrics for December 2011 show the Mac OS slipping back another tenth of a point on the month, with Windows posting exactly the same share for two consecutive months. Linux made another proportionally significant gain, continuing its recent positive streak.

Ever since its introduction on the PC, Minecraft has become a widely popular sandbox building game unlike any other before it. Minecraft allows players to create literally whatever their imagination can think up with the blocks available to them. Android’s getting their version in only two days, but iOS gamers are going to have to wait a bit longer before they get to play.

Between the armageddon scenarios conjured up by the potential of no new hardware at WWDC, constant articles and opinion pieces on the pervasively disruptive nature of Google’s Android OS, and the politely tepid response to the BlackBerry Playbook’s recent discussion during RIM’s earnings call, it is getting hard to remember why mobile computing and apps are so exciting in the first place.

NetMarketShare has posted its Operating System Total Market Share metrics for the significant players for January, 2011 (December ’10 figures in parentheses) tracking changes over the the past month. Perhaps the most significant metric this month, at least psychologically, is that Windows has dropped below 90 percent share for the first time in a very long time. The Mac OS gained just short of a quarter of a point over the month, while the iOS’s share increased significantly for the second month in a row.

Retrevo has released some interesting data as part of their 2010 Gadget Census, a report that “looked at what gadgets people own and how they use them, including data on how many smartphones are represented per capita in each state.” Have an iPhone? There’s a good chance you’re from California (no surprise there), Massachusetts, or Florida. Like Android? Fortunately for you, Android wins in a lot of states. However, the states in which it wins (like Hawaii and Montana) aren’t very populous, leaving the platform with few “gadgetoral” votes. Like getting “company” work done on your phone? There’s a good chance you live in New York, Texas and the Beltway states of Maryland and Virginia and carry a Blackberry.

With the market share of Android constantly increasing and the hardware of those devices becoming more competitive with the iPhone, developers are caught in the middle of a platform war. Do they write apps for the iPhone, where the store contains hundreds of thousands of apps and millions of users? Or do they go with Android which offers fewer restrictions yet more fragmentation?

If the iPad is intended as a media consumption device, then should it offer Flash, since so much online media is available that way? This article will explore, in three parts, this case for Flash on the iPad, as well as other iOS devices: 1.) Should the iPad Have Flash, 2.) Does Android with Flash Change the Equation, and 3.) Can the Real Adobe Please Stand (and Deliver)?

The iPad has arrived, greeted by hundreds of thousands of happy customers in the first weekend. As the best tablet device available on the market today, this doesn’t really surprise me. Furthermore, while the hardware is simplistic yet outstanding, what really makes the iPad a great product is the software available for it. However, I believe there is a huge market the iPad may miss out on by being such a closed system. Let me explain…

A recent update to Google’s Nexus One phone brings a feature Android users have been waiting for for quite some time now. While it won’t be available for all Android phones, Google’s phone will now support multi touch, including the popular pinch to zoom functionality of the iPhone. Support for this feature will be extended into the browser, photo gallery, and maps applications.

Today, Google released their free GPS guidance app for Android 2.0, called Navigation. But rumor, or CNET, has it that the app will make its way to iPhone at some point in the future. Many first time users guess, erroneously, that the iPhone has a GPS navigation app built in. This could fix that, especially if the way it makes it to the iPhone is to replace the Maps app.