New data released Monday revealed that Google’s Android mobile OS has widened its lead on Apple’s iPhone and gained significantly on Research in Motion, the top smartphone platform in the US.

According to a comScore report released Monday, smartphone ownership in the US grew 60 percent year over year to 63.2 million owners in the three months ending in December 2010. Google saw the biggest gains, climbing within several points of BlackBerry maker RIM.

Meanwhile, Apple grew 0.7 percent from 24.3 percent of total smartphone subscribers in the US in the September 2010 quarter to a 3 month average of 25 percent in December 2010.

Google, which leapt past Apple to take the No. 2 spot in November, continued its rapid growth, posting 7.3 percent growth from last quarter in its platform market share. As of December 2010, the Android maker had taken 28.7 percent of the US smartphone market share, compared to 21.4 percent in the third quarter of 2010.

RIM saw its share of US smartphone subscribers plummet from 37.3 percent in September 2010 to 31.6 percent as of December 2010. With sales of Blackberry smartphones slowing in the US, the Waterloo, Ontario-based company has shifted its focus to international markets as of late, resulting in just one-third of its revenue coming from the US last quarter.

Microsoft saw its share of subscribers drop from 9.9 percent in September 2010 to 8.4 percent in the December quarter, as Windows Phone 7 failed to gain traction. Palm also continued to lose share, dropping from 4.2 percent to 3.7 percent over the same period.

Source: comScore MobiLens

Last month, research firm Canalys reported that the Google platform, which includes Android as well as Chinese variants OMS and Tapas, had overtaken Nokia to become the top smartphone platform maker in the world.

According to data published Monday by IDC, Apple still holds its position as the No.2 worldwide smartphone maker, though top Android vendors, such as Samsung and HTC, did see impressive growth.

The iPhone maker may post significant gains in market share this quarter with the release of the iPhone 4 on Verizon. The nation’s largest wireless network announced last week that presales of the iPhone 4 beat the carrier’s previous sales records in just two hours. According to one analyst, the preorder and launch supply of CDMA iPhone 4s could include as many as 2 million units.

The state of Georgia is reportedly considering a plan to get rid of conventional textbooks and shift middle school classrooms in the state to wireless iPads built by Apple, following positive iPad trials in place by schools around the US.

Republican Senate President pro tem Tommie Williams told the press earlier this week that the Georgia legislature and educators are considering a proposal by Apple to replace printed books, according to a report by Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“Last week we met with Apple Computers,” Williams said, “and they have a really promising program where they come in and their [sic] recommending to middle schools – for $500 per child per year, they will furnish every child with an iPad, wi-fi the system, provide all the books on the system, all the upgrades, all the teacher training – and the results they’re getting from these kids is phenomenal.”

The senator added, “we’re currently spending about $40 million a year on books. And they last about seven years. We have books that don’t even have 9/11. This is the way kids are learning, and we need to be willing to move in that direction.”

Biggest thing since the overhead projector

A report by the New York Times last month described a pilot program at Roslyn High School on Long Island which started with 47 iPads. The school hopes to expand the program to include all of its 1,100 students.

It noted that the iPads “allow students to correspond with teachers and turn in papers and homework assignments, and preserve a record of student work in digital portfolios,” citing teacher Larry Reiiff as saying, “It allows us to extend the classroom beyond these four walls.”

The school described its initial purchase, which used 32GB iPads combined with a case and a stylus at a $750 each, was a part of an effort to go paperless and cut spending. In addition to just serving as electronic textbooks, the iPads are also described as running math games, being used to study world maps and interactive sky charting of constellations, and to simulate the keys of a piano.

Roslyn school superintendent Daniel Brenner said Apple’s iPad would save money in the long run by reducing printing and textbook costs; estimating that the two iPad classes save $7,200 a year.

“I think this could very well be the biggest thing to hit school technology since the overhead projector,” added school principal Scott Wolfe.

Schools around the country go iPad

The report stated that New York’s public schools had ordered 2,000 iPads, 300 of which went to Kingsbridge International High School in the Bronx. It also noted that 200 public schools in Chicago have applied for iPad grants.

Apple points out that Chicago public schools, the third largest district in the US, are ecstatically supporting iPad as a learning tool. John Connolly, the technology director for Chicago Public Schools, states in a promotional video that “being able to outfit so many our kids with such a low cost machine could be a real advantage for our district.”

The Virginia Department of Education is managing a $150,000 iPad initiative to replace history and Advanced placement biology textbooks at 11 of its schools.

The report also noted the Pinnacle Peak School in Scottsdale, Arizona, which “converted an empty classroom into a lab with 36 iPads — named the iMaginarium,” while the private Morristown-Beard School in New Jersey bought 60 iPads for $36,000 and is considering providing iPads to all students next fall.

A number of eduction initiatives related to iPad are taking advantage of President Obama’s competitive Race to the Top program designed to back the best ideas in education with federal support.

There’s an app for that

Apple lists about 5,400 eduction apps for iPad, about a thousand of which are free. Textbook publishers are eyeing the potential for moving their content to the digital world, enabling them to update material rapidly and include interactivity.

Six middle schools in San Francisco, Long Beach, Fresno and Riverside, California are now teaching the first iPad-only algebra course, developed by publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, which is studying the results of students using its digital program compared to those using conventional textbooks.

In addition to third party apps, Apple’s iPad education page touts its own iWorks apps for iPad, which it says “help students and teachers put together professional-looking documents, presentations, and spreadsheets no matter where they are,” and “when you finish what you’ve been working on, just tap the AirPrint icon to print it out directly from your iPad.”

The company also highlights iTunes U, its listing of more than 350,000 free lectures, videos and other content from institutions including Yale, Stanford, UC Berkeley, Oxford, Cambridge, MIT, Beijing Open University and The University of Tokyo.

Critics complain that tablet-shaped devices using Android can be sold for $100 and supply basic ebook reader features. However, low priced ereaders are failing to rival iPad in the marketplace, with numbers from IDC indicating that Apple’s iPad, starting at $500, continues to outsell low end ereader devices available for as little as $130.

Apple’s retail store deals for Black Friday have posted in Australia, indicating its discounts in the US will translate to around $100 savings on desktops and notebooks, and $25 to $50 on iPads and iPods.

Apple’s Australian website advertises discounts of A$121 on iMac, MacBook Pro and MacBook Air models, but the regular price of those items is significantly more than the retail price (before any sales tax) the company charges in its US stores.

Translated into US dollars, that discount would amount to $118.58 off, but the A$1449 base price of the entry level iMac and MacBook Pro means those products cost the equivalent of $1420.02 in US currency, a significant premium over the $1199 price in the US store.

This suggests that Apple’s discounts offered in the US will be similar to last year’s, when the company discounted iMacs and MacBook Pros by $101. Resellers have posted far more liberal discounts and offers for the Black Friday sale.

Similarly, the iPad and iPod touch are both advertised with discounts of A$51, very close to $50 in US dollars (the exchange rate is A$0.98 to $1 USD.) However, those products regularly list for A$629 and A$289 respectively.

Translated into USD, the iPad in Australia costs $616.42 rather than $499, while the iPod touch costs $283.22 rather than $229.

Similarly, the iPod Nano, which is A$199 and offers a A$25 discount for Black Friday in Australia is only $229 in the US rather than the equivalent of $283.22.

Apple posts US Black Friday deals

Update: Apple has posted its actual deals for tomorrow, and they are nearly inline with expectations.

iMac, MacBook Pro and MacBook Air systems are discounted $101, the iPad is on sale for $41, the iPod touch is discounted by $21, and the iPod nano is $11 off.

A variety of other minor deals apply to the Airport Express and Extreme base stations (both discounted by $11) and TimeCapsule, which is discounted by $21 for the 1TB version and $51 off for the 2TB model.

Other accessories such as keyboards, the Magic Trackpad and Magic Mouse, the iPad case, Camera Connection kit and standard iPhone headphones are all discounted by $5 to $11.

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