As we’re currently working on brand new Pingdom mobile apps for iPhone and Android phones, we’re going through the process of how to best create apps for multiple mobile platforms.

Should we stick to each platform’s guidelines or should we try to make the apps consistent in look and functionality between the platforms? Or, perhaps there is a third way, which only focuses on providing a great user experience.

Here are some of our thoughts on this.

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In today’s branded world, it is almost impossible to imagine a company that does not own the domain associated with their name or brand. But several of today’s famous domains had a very different use before they were big.

For example, did you know that iCloud.com once was the personal homepage of a Japanese professor?

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There is no denying that Android, Google’s operating system for mobile devices, is big. For example, Android is the OS on 42% of all consumer compute devices.

We have scoured the web for data that will help us show exactly how big Android is in the smartphone world. And in every way we looked at it, Android is ginormous.

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Apple has been dominating the tablet market ever since the company released the iPad, so calling the current situation a tablet war might be a bit overly dramatic. But things are heating up. The number of Android-based tablets is growing, and now even Google itself has joined the fray with the Nexus 7.

What is the current standing in this “tablet war,” and how does it differ across the world? Luckily, we can get an idea by using data from StatCounter. Their data is based on web usage (visitor stats from 3+ million websites), so it will represent the tablets actively used to surf the web.

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We just wanted to let you know that we recently updated our iPhone and Android apps.

So what’s new in this version? Mainly two things:

• The ability to pause/unpause monitoring. We added a toggle control for this on the check info page. This can be handy if you need to do some maintenance and don’t want to trigger a lot of alerts, for example. Just don’t forget to start the monitoring back up when you’re done!
• An outage view, where you can also examine the reason behind each outage. This is the new default view when you tap on a check. Needless to say, this is great for troubleshooting on the go. Tapping on an outage will show you which monitoring locations first detected the outage, and the reason for the error (for example a connection timeout or an HTTP error code).

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Just a few days ago Mozilla revealed the Firefox OS, formerly called Boot 2 Gecko, a mobile OS. There’s much to like about the upcoming OS (to be launched in 2013), but Mozilla sure has a tough fight on its hands to get traction in the crowded mobile space. We wish Mozilla good luck and look forward to seeing the new OS on actual handsets next year.

Every Friday we bring you a collection of links to places on the web that we find particularly newsworthy, interesting, entertaining, and topical. We try to focus on some particular area or topic each week, but in general we will cover Internet, web development, networking, performance, security, and other geeky topics.

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The United States may be overtaken by China as the world’s largest smartphone market this year, but it’s nevertheless a huge and highly influential market. According to Comscore, more than 100 million Americans now own a smartphone, a number that keeps growing.

We thought it would be interesting to take a closer look at the state of the US smartphone market. Where is it, and what are the trends? As you’ll see, things have changed dramatically in very little time.

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Instagram is one of those crazy success stories, an app and social network that has grown tremendously fast. If you’ve noticed an increase in Instagram pictures being shared to other social networks lately, you’re not imagining things. Sharing from Instagram to Twitter is now double what it was two months ago, and 20x what it was a year ago.

Sharing from Instagram is not just increasing because more people are downloading the app, the average user is also sharing more. This according to data from Distimo (in collaboration with Skylines for photo sharing data), who just released their latest app store market report. The report also included this very revealing chart.

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This week we thought you would be interested in reading about what’s happening with the Google and Oracle Java lawsuit. Oracle is suing Google, claiming that Google’s Android OS infringes on key Java patents owned by Oracle. Recently, Oracle rejected a $2.8 billion settlement offer from Google, and the parties are expected to go to court on April 16.

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In this show, we talk to Nicolai Solling, Director of Technology Services help AG, about security. We cover the fact that the Internet didn’t stop working a few days ago when Anonymous was supposed to take down the root DNS servers, how the Github community was up in arms over a security flaw and how it was dealt with, new Android malware, and how you can be tracked across websites.

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