Not only are companies, developers, and entrepreneurs of all varieties looking to develop a mobile presence as part of a comprehensive marketing campaign, even US states are delving into mobile territory.

This week it was posted on the official web site of the state of Alabama, that a new (and free) iPhone application is being released courtesy of Alabama.gov. Available now from iTunes and Apple’s App Store, the state of Alabama is looking to boost everything from tourism to resident awareness about state happenings through the new app.

Alabama Interactive, which is the “official eGovernment solutions provider” for the state of Alabama, reveals that the aforementioned application will serve up a variety of tools and resources that will certainly prove of interest to both Alabama residents and potential visitors to the great state. Such features include: Full site and state employee directory searches, access to state maps (parks, educational references, public services) through Google maps, news feeds, alerts and – of course – Twitter.

According to the official announcement from www.alabama.gov, the state’s website generates in excess of 800,000 visitors each month. The mobile extension of the site via the new app “will provide another gateway for citizens to interact with government.”

What it may also provide is the inspiration for every other state to develop a similar mobile application to promote the virtues and values of their own state.

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It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for. And while the waiting isn’t fully behind us yet, people chomping at the bit to get their hands on the iPad can at least circle a date on their calendars.

Apple today announced that the iPad will be released on April 3rd. However, only the Wi-Fi version of the iPad will become available first. And although a release date is yet to be announced for the 3G and Wi-Fi iPad models, a late April arrival is expected.

Global availability (Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland, the UK, etc.) similarly won’t be achieved until late April as well.

On March 12th, pre-orders will be accepted for the tablet either via Apple’s online store or at a retail outlet.

In the official news release this morning, Apple CEO Steve Jobs stated: “The iPad is something completely new. We’re excited for customers to get their hands on this magical and revolutionary product and connect with their apps and content in a more intimate, intuitive and fun way than ever before.”

Coinciding with the iPad’s April 3rd arrival, the iBooks app will also arrive along with Apple’s iBook bookstore.

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It’s a headline that will certainly inspire more than just a few double-takes. But the reports are, indeed, true. There are, at this very moment, more books available in Apple’s App Store than there are games. It’s a significant shift of content momentum that has taken place in a surprisingly rapid fashion.

This reality represents the first time the game category has taken a back seat to any other. According to a report from Mobclix, an ad exchange provider for iPhone apps, the App Store currently offers approximately 26,5000 books. All told, that represents approximately 19% percent of the total apps available in the App Store (142,0000 in all). On the other hand, Only 25,000 games are now available, a figure representing roughly 18% of the App Store’s total offerings.

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At the annual Apple shareholder’s meeting yesterday, CEO Steve Jobs reiterated again the fact that Apple is a mobile device company focused on small acquisitions to grow its businesses using the nearly $26 billion pile of cash its sitting on.  Through its acquisition history and future plans, its clear that Apple wants to own every piece of  each “mobile device” they offer, especially the iPhone.

At the shareholder’s meeting, Jobs expressed his continued interest in acquiring companies based on their talent and technology, not by their perceived market position, meaning the company will go after small startups that offer highly focused technology, or highly skilled and knowledgeable founders.  The company wants to acquire startups that can help bolster certain aspects of its products- a perfect example being the low-key acquisition of a mapping startup a while back to help Apple develop its own in-house mapping solution.

It’s clear the company wants to own every aspect of the devices they offer, and they’re already on the right track.  With the iPhone, the company directly handles the hardware,  software, the mobile commerce and music aspects via iTunes, mobile application distribution via its App store, and soon its own mapping solution, effectively locking out all third-parties and positioning itself to keep the iPhone (and all its revenue streams) all to itself.

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AdMob, in its latest Mobile Metrics Report for January 2010, focused on how consumers are interacting with mobile apps on the four major platforms; iPhone, iPod Touch, Android and WebOS.

In addition to the normal metrics AdMob reports on, last month’s special section included an opt-in survey of consumers on iPhone, iPod touch, Android and webOS devices to learn more about how they are engaging and interacting with applications.  The survey included 963 respondents across all of the platforms and revealed some interesting points on app purchasing habits.

iPhone and Android users download a similar number of apps on a monthly basis, with each platform producing around 8.8 apps downloaded per month by its users.  Of the total apps, 7 out of every 8.8 downloads were free apps on the iPhone, compared to 7.6 out of 8.7 on Android devices- indicating that iPhone users are more prone to paying for apps over Android users.

The iPod Touch, however, produces 12.1 app downloads per month on average by its users, with 10.5 being free apps.  Interestingly enough, the report indicates that iPod Touch users download 37% more apps on average than iPhone and Android users.  WebOS users download roughly 5.7 apps per month on average, with 5.1 being free apps, indicating that WebOS users are far more apt to downloading free apps over paid apps, likely because of a much smaller selection over Apple/Android app stores.

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The most significant announcement at day one of MWC was the formal debut of a formed alliance between 24 mobile operators and device makers to create a “Wholesale Applications Community,” or a way for the rest of the mobile industry to go head-to-head with the growing power of Apple’s App Store.

The new alliance includes U.S.-based AT&T, Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel, European operators Deutsche Telekom AG, France Télécom SA, Telefónica SA and Vodafone Group, and Asia’s NTT DoCoMo and China Mobile.  In addition to operators from all corners of the world, device makers LG, Samsung and Sony Ericsson have signed on as well.

The alliance is an attempt to collectively target Apple’s dominance in the realm of mobile apps — a segment that for the first time ever, demanded an entire hall at this year’s MWC — and put the combined knowledge and resources of 24 operators and device makers to work in hopes of regaining a lot of lost ground.

Together, the operators in the Wholesale Applications Community have access to over 3 billion customers, and the aim of the new alliance will be to create a simple route to market for application developers, in addition to diminishing the fragmentation that exists when multiple sources begin developing their own mobile app strategies.

Finally, it’s a logical approach from the perspective of wireless carriers who have been left in the dust, so to speak, in terms of capitalizing on the latest mobile trends.  The reason Apple’s App Store gains the attraction of the most developers is simply its massive reach.  With this alliance, a reach much further than Apple’s is now made possible, the only caveat being the already flourishing ecosystem surrounding the App Store.  If the new alliance can recreate the same ecosystem, it will change the face of mobile apps altogether, but that potential is yet to be known.

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Being the secretive enterprise they are, Apple has never been one to tell the world what their plans are.  Tradition rings true with their purposed intentions with Quattro Wireless and their inevitable entry into the mobile advertising space.

A subtle message graced a page on Apple’s iPhone developer website as an “App Store Tip,” saying “If you build your application with features based on a user’s location, make sure these features provide beneficial information,” begins the so-called tip.  ”If your app uses location-based information primarily to enable mobile advertisers to deliver targeted ads based on a user’s location, your app will be returned to you by the App Store Review Team for modification before it can be posted to the App Store.”

In other words, Apple is more-or-less banning location-based mobile advertising in its iPhone apps- at least if those ads are coming from a third-party ad-network.  Looking at the bigger picture, Apple is obviously readying itself to integrate Quattro Wireless into its iPhone strategy.  Quietly taking the feature away from developers by way of a simple “App Store Tip,” means bigger plans are in the works.

It only makes sense that Apple will utilize it’s new “mobile advertising division” (A.K.A Quattro Wireless) to provide the only option for iPhone developers to monetize their apps via in-app location-oriented advertising.  By doing so, Apple could potentially lock-out all other competing mobile ad-networks (such as Google-owned AdMob) and have a lock on the largest mobile app ecosystem in existence.

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