according to research from comScore and Compete, that 37% of US mobile users had heard of Android in November 2009. This was up from 22% as recently as August, likely due to the Verizon Droid ad campaign.

And 17% of mobile users in the market for a new smartphone in the next three months planned to buy an Android phone, compared with 20% who would pick up an iPhone.

Usage patterns for Android and iPhone owners were very similar, and tended to differ from those of other smartphone users as well as from those of feature phone owners.

via: mashable

NYtimes.com Article By MIGUEL HELFT Published: January 5, 2010

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - Google stepped up its attack on the mobile phone industry on Tuesday, introducing a new touchscreen phone called Nexus One to compete with the iPhone.

The device, which was built by HTC, a Taiwanese electronics manufacturer, has a 3.7-inch screen and runs the latest version of Google's Android operating system. It is just 11.5 millimeters thin, or about the thickness of a No. 2 pencil, and weighs 130 grams, or no more than a small Swiss Army knife, said Erick Tseng, a senior product manager. It has a 5-megapixel camera and an LED flash and can shoot both still images and video.

"The Nexus One is an exemplar of what is possible with Android on mobile phones," Mario Queiroz, a vice president for product management at Google, said during a news conference at Google's headquarters here.

Read the rest of the article at NYTimes.com

Attention iPhone facebook users, your developer (the only developer) had just quit making enhacements to the facebook app on the iPhone.  The reason behind this is that he doesn't like the iPhone app approval policy, here's some quotes from his statement about the apps approval policy on the iPhone.

My decision to stop iPhone development has had everything to do with Apple's policies. I respect their right to manage their platform however they want, however I am philosophically opposed to the existence of their review process. I am very concerned that they are setting a horrible precedent for other software platforms, and soon gatekeepers will start infesting the lives of every software developer.

The web is still unrestricted and free, and so I am returning to my roots as a web developer. In the long term, I would like to be able to say that I helped to make the web the best mobile platform available, rather than being part of the transition to a world where every developer must go through a middleman to get their software in the hands of users."

It's not the end of the World, some other engineers/developers will continue his work, but i doubt it would be as good.

Thanks Techcrunch for this story

Article from news.bbc.co.uk,  - Vodafone says it will start selling the iPhone in the UK on 14 January 2010.

It is the latest of the UK's major phone networks to offer the iPhone to customers.

The cheapest tariff available is £30 a month for 24 months, plus additional handset charges ranging from £59 (iPhone 3G 8GB) to £239 (3GS 32GB).

Both business and consumer contracts are subject to a 1GB monthly data limit on mobile internet use. Orange has a "fair use" limit of 750MB per month.

For complete news, check out bbc.co.uk 

Thanks to BGR for this news.

Businessweek.com reported that there's a good chance that Verizon will be releasing the iPhone, because Verizon seems to boost their cell service network to handle a more massive traffic.

There's no telling yet whether or when AT&T (T) might lose its position as the sole U.S. carrier of the Apple (AAPL) iPhone. But in the event Apple opts to partner with other mobile-phone service providers, Verizon Wireless says it's up to the task.

Verizon Wireless has even made upgrades that would make its network more capable of handling extra traffic that would be generated by the iPhone, Verizon Wireless Chief Technology Officer Anthony Melone says in an interview.

"We have put things in place already," Melone tells Bloomberg BusinessWeek. "We are prepared to support that traffic."

AT&T has come under fire for the spotty performance of its network. Vexed by dropped calls and slow download speeds, some consumers say the company was unprepared for the surge in traffic that's resulted from iPhone use. Verizon Wireless in TV commercials has mocked AT&T's network coverage, and Melone says his company's equipment would do a better job catering to the heavy data demands of iPhone customers. "Absolutely, I think we could handle it," he says.

via: businessweek.com