More than half of all iOS devices detected in May were located outside the U.S., a just-released survey indicates. Apple was also the most-frequent brand found, with 44 million unique devices, according to the AdMob ad agency.

According to AdMob, 57 percent of the iOS devices it found in May were outside the United States. Although 48 percent of iOS devices, such as the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, were found inside North America, 28 percent were from Western Europe, while 15 percent came from Asia.

Firefox has just announced that their not-really-a-web-browser-so-Apple-can’t-reject-us app, Firefox Home, has just been sent off to the App Store for approval

Based upon Firefox Sync technology, Firefox Home allows iPhone users to always have access to their Firefox browsing history, bookmarks and open tabs, as well as access to their “Awesome Bar,” which allows them to browse to a site with the minimum of typing fuss. Find what you want, and Firefox Home passes on any opened pages to Mobile Safari.

There shouldn’t be any hangups getting Firefox Home through the approval process, given the existence of other Safari-competitors on the App Store, like Opera Mini or the Atomic Browser. If you’re a major Firefox user and you want to take your sessions — but not your browser — on the road with you, you can set yourself up for Firefox Home here in wait for an official thumbs up.

It’s easy to extrapolate from the fact that Macs don’t have Blu-Ray drives already (even as an option) that, internally, Apple is banking on digital delivery as the future of high-definition content. Now, for the first time, Steve Jobs has confirmed it in one of his characteristic email exchanges with an Apple fan.

Writing a disappointed Blu-Ray fan about the form’s absence in Apple’s line up, Jobs wrote: “Bluray is looking more and more like one of the high end audio formats that appeared as the successor to the CD – like it will be beaten by Internet downloadable formats.”

When his correspondent respond that high-end video formats had a higher uptake, citing the lack of DRM as a main driver behind Blu-Ray growth, Jobs shot down the idea.

No, free, instant gratification and convenience (likely in that order) is what made the downloadable formats take off. And the downloadable movie business is rapidly moving to free (Hulu) or rentals (iTunes) so storing purchased movies or TV shows is not an issue.

I think you may be wrong – we may see a fast broad move to streamed free and rental content at sufficient quality (at least 720p) to win almost everyone over.

I think Jobs is write that Blu-Ray is clearly an interim format, although I’m skeptical, right now, of iTunes’ dominant place in the high-definition video digital delivery ecosystem: iTunes isn’t really making the most impressive show when it comes to video compared to the likes of Netflix, and I don’t really think that’s likely to change until Apple starts taking the Apple TV more seriously than “just a hobby.” Apple needs a competitively priced and featured set-top box to really get their video strategy into play.

We start the last day of June with a couple items for your iPad and another deal on unibody MacBook Pros from the Apple Store. First is a velvet bag for your iPad for just $7. Next is a number of unibody MacBook Pros from the Apple Store, starting at $929 for a 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo model. Finally is a simply holder to prop up your iPad for reading.

Along the way, we check out iPhone and iPod touch software, sleeves for your iPod nano and another iPad stand. As usual, details on these and many other bargains are at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

Celluloid-worthy beauty Anna Chapman, arrested by the FBI for belonging to an Russian espionage network called “the illegals,” may also go down in history as the spy who loved Macs.

On January 25, the 28-year-old told her 175 Facebook friends: “My new Mac has been the buy of the year…Love it!”

It wasn’t an easy relationship, though. According to the FBI documents, her spy job was plagued by network problems that made transmitting her weekly Wednesday intelligence reports via a private wireless network at Starbucks and Barnes and Noble in New York a major hassle. Documents didn’t mention which Apple laptop she used.

Responding to a recent New York Times piece linking the horrific warfare in the Congo with the minerals used in our gadgets, Steve Jobs wrote a new iPhone 4 customer explaining Apple’s policy in dealing with mineral purchases:

We require all of our suppliers to certify in writing that they use conflict few materials. But honestly there is no way for them to be sure. Until someone invents a way to chemically trace minerals from the source mine, it’s a very difficult problem.

That’s a refreshingly blunt admission of relative impotence: Apple’s doing what it can, but ultimately, their suppliers are in turn supplied by people who could well be lying about their source. Short of a way to independently verify where minerals are coming from, Apple’s got to take people at their words.

I purchased my first iPad with Wi-Fi and later upgraded to one with 3G when they were available. I am using it more than I am using my MacBook Pro especially for quick and dirty tasks that it is perfectly suitable for like e-mail, internet surfing, chatting, Twitter, reading, shopping, research, etc. My iPad became very useful very quickly and now it has become a very important part of my life at work and at home. Therefore I’m constantly seeking something new, innovative, or productive to do with it and now that I am armed with a VGA video adapter I’ve discovered that my iPad makes a great whiteboard.

If you haven’t already played Giana Sisters, you’re missing out! It’s one of the best platform games on the iPhone & iPod Touch and I highly recommend you try it. If you share my love of Giana Sisters, you too will be pleased to hear that a HD version is making its way to the iPad soon, according to Touch Arcade.

Originally released in 1987, The Great Giana Sisters was first developed for the Amiga, Atari, Commodore 64 and other consoles of the era. It was quickly pulled, however, after running in to legal trouble with Nintendo due to its similarity with Super Mario Bros. The game was reborn in 2005 when it was renamed simply Giana Sisters, and made its way on to mobile phones, and a few years later, the Nintendo DS.

Today, 5 years on, Giana Sisters is one of the best platform games in the App Store for the iPhone and iPod Touch, and Touch Arcade have reported today that its developers, Bad Monkey, have sent them a bunch of screenshots for their upcoming HD version of the game. You can check them out and find out more info here, or read Touch Arcade’s review of the current game here.

If you can’t wait until the iPad release on 9th July, you can find the iPhone & iPod Touch version in the App Store here.

When a buddy of mine suggested (insisted, actually) I try using HeyTell, my first feeling was that using it was like having a ridiculously slow-mo phone conversation: short staccato bursts of talking interspersed by long, frustrating periods of having to wait for a response.

Well, that feeling lasted all of about 10 minutes; the more I played with it, the more I realized that — besides the fact that I could already call, text, tweet, email, IM and use Facebook — yep, here’s another method I’ll use semi-regularly to blab with.

In an intriguing move, Amazon has updated its Kindle software application for the iPhone and iPad with features not available on the company’s e-reader hardware. Users of Apple’s iOS-based devices can now read Kindle e-books with audio and video.

Examples of Kindle editions already available with audio and video feature a cake-making video and audio clips of bird songs. Other expanded editions available on Amazon include “Les Miserables”, “Rick Steves’ London” and “Knitting for Dummies.”