Google’s (presently in embittered political tussle with the Chinese government) decision to postpone a Motorola Android phone launch in China has spurred Motorola to reveal that it will introduce its own Android apps store for the Chinese market. Motorola is teaming up with China’s search engine leader Baidu and will start up Shop4Apps, which is set to go live before Chinese New Year (February 14th). More »

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AdMob statistics show that in the fourth quarter of 2009, the iPhone and Android smartphone operating systems accounted for 67% of all online advertisement views. Android marketing share quadrupled from 4% in Q1 to 16% by the end of last year. HTC’s drastically increased spending is part of the reason for Android’s rise. More »

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In response to a report claiming a 200% Android usage increase, HTCYou user David Chou was kind enough to contribute this blog post as a response:

Almost every large phone OEM has many Android platforms in the works, Motorola recently canned all their WinMobile and other designs and are moving everything over to Android. Similarly, Korean OEMs are heavily targeting Android and there will be plethora of Android phones soon in the market. Apple’s inherent advantage are the integration of their media content, applications, iTunes, etc. as well as having relatively “optimized” implementation of hardware and software integration - they control everything so that general performance will generally be superior than competing platforms. More »

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Let me get this straight, just in case there is any confusion: Android 1.6 came out on September 15th, 2.0 on October 26th, so why is my Android powered smartphone still stuck on version 1.5 or 1.6? Google’s open source Android project arrived with the promise that it would be free and completely open to everyone. Unfortunately, one of the massive problems that Android has created is a lack of universal standards and regulations. We are in smartphone anarchy. More »

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At least for now, Google has put two Android smartphones - Motorola and Samsung - on hold until its political scuffle with the Chinese government is resolved. All currently available Android phones remain on shelves though. More »

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Yet another smashing overseas smartphone, the Acer Liquid was supposed to be the world’s first “Snapdragon” processor device, but its launch had been delayed until last week. The Liquid has quality specs and its black variant is now for sale in the UK, with most of western Europe, Russia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Indonesia also getting theirs sometime this year. I question just how well this phone will do since the technically more advanced Nexus One has made barely a ripple. More »

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From Ziggytek: For the past decade, Google has been busy with its all-powerful search engine but has also made strategic acquisitions, such as buying out Android, Inc., which is the basis for the Android operating system. Google, entering markets filled with mega-corporations like Microsoft, Apple, and Nokia, has to climb steep mountains to stake its position in the communications and operating systems war. However, crashing the party late has its advantages too. For one thing, Google can learn from the mistakes and successes of rivals. More »

In a move that greatly dismays Microsoft, LG has announced that of the 20 phones it plans to introduce in 2010, a majority of them will be powered by Android, with only a few running Windows Mobile. In September, when LG launched its first Android phone, the Eve (Canadian exclusive), the company stated that it would release at least “13 new smartphones over the next 16 months that utilize Microsoft’s Windows Mobile.” More »

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From Ziggytek: HTC is the main player in the Android and Windows Mobile smartphone bazaar and has the 8 following handhelds scheduled for release in 2010. Some of the information here is speculative, but the data is trustworthy. The Legend is all but confirmed to be HTC’s first Android phone for this year, while the Bravo looks to be Nexus One’s match. I am excited that all phones are both CDMA and GSM, so they should work with any carrier in the world. From my perspective, the only significant area that HTC phones need to do catch-up on is multi-touch, which Apple does just so splendidly. More »

From Ziggytek: It has been rumored that the Sony has abandoned its scheduled February 10th release date of the Ericsson Xperia X10 and will begin shipping preorders out to the UK on January 18th. Either way, this is a phone that I am excited to see, and it ranks #1 on my “to buy” list for this year. More »