iPhone Too Dainty? Rugged Competitors Can Take Beating

Passes Symbian; iPhone at No. 3

(NEWSER) - Google’s Android is now the world’s most popular smartphone platform, having edged past Nokia’s Symbian in the fourth quarter of 2010. Vendors shipped 33.3 million Android-based phones that quarter, beating Symbian’s 31 million, a report out today finds. That’s good news for Android phone vendors LG and Acer, who saw sales volume boosts of 4,127% and 709% from Q4 of 2009—and for Samsung and HTC, who together shipped nearly 45% of all Android phones in the period, reports CNET . More»

Finnish cell phone maker alleges copyright infringement

(NEWSER) - Nokia, the world's biggest cell phone maker, is suing Apple in US federal court for alleged copyright infringement, saying it has 10 claims on the technology used in the iPhone. The Finnish company said Apple used "fundamental" patented technologies concerning wireless data, speech recognition, security, and encryption. It has reasons to be concerned: This week Apple posted a blazing 47% jump in quarterly profits, while Nokia swung to a loss. More»

(NEWSER) - This should make it easier to charge your phone: Most of the big players in the industry said today they will work toward a universal charger by 2012, Wired reports. That means a standard USB cable will do the trick, no matter the brand. However, Wired notes one notable absence from the eco-friendly industry agreement: Apple. More»

Execs obsess over consumer wants, 'subliminal' needs

(NEWSER) - With the cellphone industry increasingly hit-driven, phone designers are plumbing the consumer psyche through cultural experts and focus groups, reports the New York Times. "Our job is to be behaviorists and psychologists," says an exec. Competition has heated up as consumers buy—and discard—phones at an ever-faster rate, with the most trend-conscious getting a new one every 9 months. More»

She's a giant 'bandwidth guzzler': Paul Farhi

(NEWSER) - Siri is knowledgeable, convenient, even funny—but she has a dark side. "Siri’s dirty little secret is that she’s a bandwidth guzzler, the digital equivalent of a 10-miles-per-gallon Hummer H1," writes Paul Farhi in the Washington Post . Indeed, the iPhone 4S, which brought us Siri, uses twice the data of the regular iPhone 4, and almost three times that of the 3G, a study found, saying the Siri-equipped 4S "appears to unleash data consumption behaviors that have no precedent.” More»