According to the results of a first-ever survey on smartphone usage by the Pew Internet Project, it was found that 25 percent of respondents prefer to use their smartphones to access the Internet over traditional PCs.

The survey found that 35 percent of all U.S. adults own a smartphone, however looking at just mobile phone owners in the U.S., the number goes up to 42 percent.  Pew also found that 87 percent of smartphone owners go Online or get email and 68 percent do so daily.

Continue Reading

According to the freshly published Net Applications‘ monthly tallies, mobile phones and tablets now account for more than 5% of global web browsing.

In the United States alone, however, that percentage is even higher – 8.2%.

In terms of the most popular mobile devices American users browse the web with, the iPhone leads the pack with 2.9%. Android phones are next with 2.6%. The iPad claims 2.1%, and BlackBerry phones take all but 0.6%.

Continue Reading

Hulu has agreed to play nice with Apple. At least that’s how it looks as of Monday, when the Hulu Plus iPad application was updated to fully comply with Apple’s recently revamped In-App Subscription rules.

For Hulu, however, the update couldn’t have been less complicated. Hulu simply removed the link that sent potential subscribers to its Web site. The move comes in accordance with Apple’s new policy, which effectively prohibits “apps that link to external mechanisms for purchases or subscriptions to be used in the app.”

Continue Reading

The rush is on to mitigate concerns about mobile privacy and the potential inappropriate mobile security violations made possible via mobile location tracking. From the world’s biggest handset makers to the software vendors we’re all familiar with, the hottest issue of the day remains mobile privacy and the steps that can be taken to bolster it.

Over the weekend, Mozilla’s Firefox for Android became the first mobile Web browser to offer the “Do Not Track” privacy feature. “Mozilla introduced ‘Do Not Track’ to give users more control over the way their browsing behavior is tracked and used online,” say the open-source software development gurus at Mozilla. “It enables users to tell websites if they prefer to opt-out of online behavioral tracking.”

Continue Reading

Twitter has updated its mobile web app to better provide a high-quality and consistent Twitter experience on high-end touchscreen devices regardless of whether an official Twitter application is available.

“We want you to be able to access Twitter no matter where you are,” Twitter revealed on the company’s official blog. No matter what device you use or whether primarily access Twitter through a mobile application or the browser, today’s refresh will be noticeable to those engaged with Twitter.

Now boasting more than 200 million users worldwide tweeting some 155 million times a day, the improvement certainly portends favorably for the microblogging platform’s continued growth.

Continue Reading

According to a new report from Jumptap, a majority of US mobile web users spend more time engaging with content through their mobile device’s browser than mobile applications, particularly those that are ad-supported.

Data from the month of April is compiled in the new S.T.A.T. (Simple Targeting & Audience Trends) report.

The findings indicate that more than 58% of mobile internet users are getting content through their browser, as opposed to 42% from ad-supported apps.

The report evaluated 10 billion ad requests made to the Jumptap network by 83 million unique users.

Continue Reading

comScore has published its annual Online Credit Card Report, which delves into the US online credit card industry for the preceding year.

The results show a swelling interest among mobile users to engage in online and mobile banking platforms.

20% of all mobile phone owning cardholders report using their handset to manage their bank accounts during the past twelve months.

16% of mobile users access their card issuer’s site through a mobile browser, while 13% do so via mobile application.

Continue Reading