Dutch analytics company Distimo have just released their latest report, which focuses on the US App Store for the iPad and iPhone. The report makes for good reading for anyone with an interest in mobile device application development.

According to the report, the number of apps for iPad has grown to 4,870 since the release of the iPad on 3 April. Predictably, the largest application category for the iPad is Games, which has 1,577 titles (32% of the total), followed by Entertainment with 455 titles and Books with 396.

The average price of an iPhone app in the app store is $3.82, as opposed to $4.67 for iPad apps. 80% of the 4,870 applications for iPad are paid, compared to 73% of the 186,414 applications for iPhone.

Medical and Finance applications are the most expensive apps for the iPad, at an average of $42.11 and $18.48 respectively. This is significantly more than the average price for applications in these categories for iPhone ($10.74 and $5.74 respectively).

Visit the Distimo site to download the full report for free.

Simply providing a place for African internet users to get on to the web is no longer good enough for South African based blogging platform Bundublog.com.

We’re a firm believer that African internet users still want to have their own little piece on the web, but we realised that Bundublog had to up its focus on becoming a destination website rather than just a freebie tool for bloggers.

With that in mind, the site has undergone a basic upgrade of its layout and its landing page now incorporates interviews with leading African tech experts as well as some lighter spirited social interviews.
The site can now also accommodate Bundublog aggregated podcasts, event listings and a section which will focus on giving South African entertainers – including comedians and music artists – the opportunity to show off their talent to the community.

On the marketing front, Bundublog has expanded its geo-targeting to include Zambia, Kenya, Nigeria and Egypt as it seeks to become a truly African platform.

Another shift in focus is working out ways to help bloggers monetise their offering. For many blogging is a labour of love with few financial rewards unless you are a small business using it as part of your marketing arsenal.

With that in mind we have collaborated with local pay-per-click network AD:Dynamo and will shortly be announcing a partnership with a local mobile advertising company which could potentially provide bloggers with some annuity income from their blogs.

There is a perception out there that blogging is “old school” in the face of various new social media channels – this is something we completely disagree with. The global recession has forced businesses of all shapes and sizes to re-look at how they market their products and target online communities.

A vibrant blogging community, not only provides a channel for entrepreneurs to gain exposure, but also offers some brilliant marketing opportunities for merchants.

Well this is interesting – Google bought the guys responsible for BumpTop, the very slick 3 dimensional desktop application. I have always been a fan of the idea of Bumptop, but I hated running another layer over my background. The few times that I did test it I was always impressed, and it ran well, especially its recent Mac OSX version. It was however limited in its free form, and hopefully Google fixes this. Just like Picasa was little known before Google bought it, maybe they will set Bumptop free for all OS’s, with quick links to all Google services. I can imagine that being very handy.

Please Google, dont keep Bumptop only for your upcoming ChromeOS (or Android).

Set it free.

Reconstructed Living Lab is hosting a social media workshop in Athlone on 4 May, aimed at civil society and non-profit organisations.

Participants will be given an introduction to social media and will be educated in the use of social media tools such as blogs, wikis, file-sharing sites and mobile social networks. Guidelines and suggestions will be offered for how organisations can best utilise and benefit from social media, and the topic of drafting a Social Media Policy for non-profits will also be covered.

This is a hands-on, practical workshop, which means that participants will have an opportunity to use some of the social media tools and will come away with real skills that they can immediately put to use in their respective organisations.

The workshop will run from 09h15 to 13h30 at 66 Tarentaal Road, Bridgetown, Athlone (Western Cape). For more information, call Reconstructed Living Lab on 021 699 1453.

How many Twitter users are there in South Africa? Fuseware just made available their latest SA Twitter report, which has some very interesting facts:

• Number of Active* SA Twitter users: 55000
• Monthly tweets from SA: 1.5 million
• Twitter web penetration: 4.5% of SA sites reference Twitter
• Twitter SA site popularity: 7th most visited website in SA
• Average Twitter followers for SA: 115
• Average friends for SA: 122
• Average total tweets per user for SA: 346
• Percent of protected accounts: 0.38%
• Percent of geo-location enabled accounts: 12.96%
• Percent of Twitter verified accounts: 0.014%
• People hardly use Twitter.com directly for posting tweets, with only 26% logging into the site to post updates.
• The most popular Twitter client is TweetDeck, with 10% of all SA tweeters using it.
• People hardly use Twitter.com directly for posting tweets, with only 26% logging into the site to post updates.The most popular Twitter client is TweetDeck, with 10% of all SA tweeters using it.
• SA mostly tweets at night, between 7 and 8 pm. Many also tweet first thing in the morning, and over lunch.
• Cape Town and Johannesburg are the most busy tweeters.

This is a pretty great report by the guys at Fuseware, with lots more info – so go download it here.

A joint effort by Cape Town Partnership and wi-fi hotspot provider Skyrove means that Capetonians will now be able to make use of free wireless internet at Greenmarket Square in the city centre.

Henk Kleynhans, CEO of Skyrove says, “Businesses on Greenmarket Square will see a significant increase in the number of people lingering in their establishments, as more locals will schedule meetings outside of the office – or linger over coffee – while they enjoy wireless internet in the cosmopolitan bustle of this 300-year old heritage space.”

The provision of free wi-fi will also certainly be of benefit to tourists, particularly those wanting to access data services on their smartphones while travelling.

The project will run for an initial six months, and individual users will be allocated 10MBs of free internet each day.

Terri Carter, Senior Project Manager at Cape Town Partnership, says promisingly, “We hope to roll out similar projects around the city very soon.”

Obox Design, a premium theme studio based in Hout Bay, Cape Town, has joined up with popular micro-blogging service Posterous to supply their users with a selection of themes. The Obox themes will be included in the official Posterous theme directory, and will all be free. Three themes are already available, with two more in the pipeline.

Themes now available
My.List, a visual theme suited to designers or photographers:

Mad Men, formerly known as Smoke & Tumble:

Post Press, formerly known as Micro.Press:

The two themes currently in development are Minimal (simple design with a clear focus on the content), and Wired Inspired (includes some subtle grunge elements). Read more about the partnership on the Obox blog.

Apple yesterday made public the dates for their annual WWDC conference. On June 7 you can expect Steve Jobs to grace the stage again to welcome developers for the Apple ecosystem. While it has been primarily concerned with development on the Mac platform in the past, in recent years the focus has been much more on the iPh0ne. While the conference deals primarily with app development, iPhone fans everywhere are also interested seeing as this is where Apple traditionally announces their new iPhone. Perhaps also a sneak peak at the next generation Mac OS X. Cougar? Or Feral Cat?

Unfortunately this year the hype will be a little more subdued, seeing as most tech lovers have already seen the pictures and specs of the next iPhone, but this is not to say that prototype was final…

Update: Turns out this WWDC will focus much less on desktop development than ever before.