Nielsen, a popular analyst company, has published its report on the US smartphone market in the second quarter of 2012. The quarter saw smartphone growth continue as two thirds of all new customers picked a smartphone.

Android continues to be in lead, Android is powering 51.8% of all US smartphones and 54.6% of the devices purchased over the past three months. And that was the quarter before the Samsung Galaxy S III was launched.

Apple's iOS platform users is decreasing, with Apple's OS accounting for 34.3% of US smartphones and 36.3% of the newly acquired ones. Expectedly iOS is starting to lose pace in the third quarter of iPhone 4S availability.

Amazon is said to be developing its own smartphone, which will compete against the iPhone and the Android smartphones, says Bloomberg. The world's largest online retailer is said to have partnered with Foxconn to manufacture the handset for it.

There are no other details available at the moment but if Amazon plans to compete with iPhone their phone has to be high-end, unlike the Kindle Fire, which was a budget offering. We don't know what software it would be running but it's fair to assume it would be a heavily customized version of Android such as the one on the Kindle Fire.

Considering Amazon has its own application store, along with books, music, movies and loads of other stuff, it really doesn't matter if it doesn't allow access to the Google Play Store.

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With the release of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, CyanogenMod had provides some details about when they will be releasing an update to CyanogenMod. CyanogenMod team has taken to Google+ and although they did not provide an ETA for the update, they did provide a few details about the update itself.

The next update, as you may have guessed, will be called CM10, keeping with the tradition of giving the update the same number as the position of the alphabet of the Android version is named after (Jelly Bean). Here is the Official Announcement:

"...On Jelly Bean

Unless you have been internet deprived lately, you are aware that Android 4.1 aka Jelly Bean (JB) is due out in the coming weeks. Which inevitably leads to the question: How does this affect me CyanogenMod?

Now, to preface this, we do not have our hands on the source code, and things in this post may change dependent on analysis of the code first hand and the impacts. That said, we do have a general understanding of the changes and what we can expect, and this post serves to highlight the key changes.

CyanogenMod Next

Many have asked whether JB will be CM9.1 or CM10. Keeping with the pattern thus far, every newly named AOSP update results in a bump to the CM major version. This has the added benefit of fitting into the pattern of [insert codename position in the english alphabet] = CM version. Examples being: G is the 7th letter thus CM7, I is the 9th letter thus CM9 and J = 10.

I can't believe its not Butter

The ‘Project Butter' enhancements to Android are much anticipated and should not be a huge pain to merge. We anticipate some breakage in existing libs but nothing that the reference board devices or some hackery won't overcome. Essentially, if your device met our criteria for CM9 (512mb RAM, etc) and is already supported, then you should be in line for CM10. There may be some added headaches around hwcomposer, but we'll cross that bridge when we get source.

ETA?

When it's ready... "

Adobe has now announced that Flash Player won't be supported in Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. A prime example of this is the new Nexus 7 tablet, that ships without Flash support. Furthermore, Adobe has also announced that it will Cease new Flash Player downloads from the Google Play Store starting from 15,August.

First of all, devices that come pre-loaded with Flash have been certified by Adobe that the Flash Player will works as expected on the device. Adobe says that it will not certify any Android 4.1 devices.

While in the past that wouldn't be that big of a deal, Adobe also says that starting on August 15th, it will configure the settings in the Play Store to only allow Flash Player updates to devices that already have Flash installed. Devices that do not have Flash installed will not be authorized to download it from the Google Play Store. While a device that is upgraded from 4.0 to 4.1 will keep its Flash Player in tact, Adobe recommends uninstalling it because it may exhibit unexpected behavior.

After 15, August You won't be able to download Flash Player on any New Android Handset.

More Info [Adobe]

Google has just announced that Chrome for Android is finally out of beta. Now, The software has just been updated on the Google Play store to version 18.0.1025123. BUT Now it's Faster and smoother than ever.

Building on the familiar Chrome experience of searching and entering URLs in the same area, the beta finalizes new features that were seen as early as February. It's good timing too, since Firefox just released a very strong contender in the browser-for-Android-devices market.

Google says the updated mobile browser has "accelerated page loading, scrolling and zooming," and automatically syncs with your desktop Chrome browser, so all your tabs, passwords, and bookmarks are identical whether you're in the office or on the road.

Chrome For Android [Play]

We already know that Google is working on a Siri-like personal assistance to integrate it on Android. Today, Wall Street Journal about the smartphone ecosystem mentions that according to people on the inside, Google is accelerating the development of a Siri-like virtual, interactive personal assistant for Android users.

While whatever Google produces will naturally bring comparisons to Siri, Google has higher aspirations. There has been some speculation that the finished design would make Google's virtual assistant much more powerful with more capabilities than Siri.

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According to Andy Rubin, Google Android Product manager, Android is now getting over 900,000 daily activations, which represents an increase of more than 50,000 compared to the 850,000 number from last February.

This Number will reach 1 Million daily by the End of the Year as there is some rumors about the Android JellyBean 4.1 is coming before the end of the year, Making Google Android OS the fastest growing Mobile OS in the World.

Today, Adobe has updated the Flash Player for the desktop and Android. On the desktop, the Flash Player 11.3 now supports keyboard input even in fullscreen mode and low latency audio support for streaming audio and Sound API. Other features include sandboxing which is available for Firefox users on Windows.

On the Mac, you now get the ability to upgrade the Flash Player in the background. It also comes signed with the Apple Developer ID so it can work with the Gatekeeper feature in the upcoming OS X Mountain Lion. On Android, 11.3 update adds stylus support for Android 4.0 devices like the Galaxy Note and Galaxy Note 2. The other release is AIR 3.3, which lets Flash developers create mobile apps and native extensions for iOS 5.1.

Head to Google Play App on your phone and Check for Updates.

Lamborghini (yes, the car brand) has announced their new range of luxury phones and tablets for the Russian market.

The first Device, is a simple feature phone called the TL688 Spyder that has a 2-inch QVGA display, 3 megapixel camera with video recording, front facing camera, 4GB internal memory and GPRS/EDGE connectivity. Being a luxury phone, however, it has a hand-made leather body and a leather back. It also has a rather unique shape that looks more like a TV remote than a regular phone.

The 2nd phone is the TL700 (pictured above) is actually an Android smartphone but unfortunately runs on Android 2.3 Gingerbread. It runs on an Qualcomm processor and has a 3.7-inch 800 x 480 resolution display. There is a 5 megapixel camera on the back and VGA on the front, 4GB internal memory and a 1,400mAh battery. The phone has a gold plated body, sapphire glass coating for the display and crocodile skin back.

The tablet L2800 is an Android tablet. It has a 9.7-inch, 1024 x 768 resolution display (same as the iPad 2), 1.2GHz Qualcomm processor, 512MB of RAM and 4GB internal memory (expandable). Sadly, it also runs on Android 2.3 but it will be updated to Android 4.0 in future.

The base TL688 Spyder will cost 60,000 - 70,000 Russian ruble ($1,829 - $2,134). The TL820 Spyder 2 will cost 80,000 ruble ($2,438), the TL700 around 90,000 ruble ($2743) and the L2800 around 75,000 ruble ($2,286).

Google has updated the Android distribution figures on its developer website. The Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich user base has grown to 7.1%, up from the 2.9% back on April,2012.

The sharp growth is likely due to the launch of new Android 4.0 devices such as the HTC One series phones, as well as several high-end devices receiving the Android 4.0 update. With even more Android 4.0 devices on their way and more updates planned for current devices, this number will continue to rise.

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