Android in the U.S. pushed ahead of smartphone platform rivals iOS and Blackberry in January, according to Nielsen Wire, and is finding more popularity among younger consumers. That has helped HTC become the third largest smartphone manufacturer in the U.S. after Apple and Research In Motion, winning both the Android and Windows Phone 7 manufacturing race ahead of rivals Motorola and Samsung.

The latest figures for January from Nielsen show that Android’s current market share has moved up to 29 percent from 27 percent in December following a torrid year of growth in 2010, while iOS dropped a point from 28 percent to 27 percent, remaining largely stable over the last year. RIM remained constant from January at 27 percent but it is still trying to reverse a significant slide over the last year. Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 and Windows Mobile comes in with 10 percent, while Hewlett Packard’s webOS and Palm OS account for 4 percent and Symbian just 2 percent.

In the overall battle of manufacturers, however, Apple and RIM are tops with 27 percent each because they own their hardware and platforms. But among manufacturing vendors who build for other platforms, HTC has managed to best rivals on both Android and Windows Phone 7. It has a combined 19 percent of the market, with 12 percent on Android and 7 percent on Windows Phone 7 and Windows Mobile. Motorola has 11 percent: 10 percent coming from Android and 1 percent from WP7 and Windows Mobile. Samsung has about 7 percent of the U.S. smartphone market with 5 percent of the overall share from Android and 2 percent from Microsoft’s platforms.

Motorola has hitched its wagon to Android, which limits its sales potential for now. HTC has gotten ahead by embracing both Android and Microsoft’s OSes, something Samsung is also doing. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of effect Nokia will have in the U.S. market when it starts selling WP7 devices, possibly before the end of this year. It has just 2 percent of the smartphone manufacturing market from the sale of Symbian phones. So very few Americans are used to buying a Nokia smartphone, but that could change with Microsoft’s software and branding.

Android, meanwhile, appears to be doing well selling to younger consumers. Six percent of its sales are to 18-24 year olds, ahead of iOS and RIM at 4 percent. That Android is selling 50 percent better to this demographic suggests that younger users are responding to the breadth of device choices and price points. It bodes well for Android as the smartphone market expands. Capturing younger users is good for long term sales as younger users make the jump up from more messaging phones.

Related research on GigaOM Pro (sub. req’d):

• Why RIM’s Future (Unfortunately) Hinges on BlackBerry OS 6
• Why Google Launched App Inventor
• Is Amazon the New Self-Publish Kingpin?

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GigaOM

A changing of the guard will soon take place in Microsoft’s gaming and mobile divisions. Kotaku confirmed yesterday that J. Allard (above, right), who has served both as Chief Experience Officer and as Chief Technology Officer of Entertainment and Devices Division, and Robbie Bach (above, left), who has been President of Entertainment and Devices Division, will both retire from the company this fall. In short, this news means that two of the main men who helped to make Microsoft a gaming giant through its Xbox brand and pushed the Windows OS onto mobile phones will no longer be with the company.

CEO Steve Ballmer, who made the surprising announcement in a memo to employees, says executives Don Mattrick and Andy Lees will report directly to him on all gaming and mobile matters starting July 1st. Apparently, it’s part of a larger reorganizing effort within the company that will continue through the end of the year. While Ballmer praised Allard and Bach, this announcement smells like a firing to us. After all, according to a Reuters report on MSNBC, Windows appears on just 10-percent of the smartphones around the globe. Plus, as Geekosystem points out, Microsoft’s Courier tablet, which was Allard’s pet project, was canceled about a month ago. Allard, however, claims that development had nothing to do with his decision, and in an eloquent goodbye note, he speaks of focusing on the 5-percent of his life not consumed by Microsoft.

Continue reading Microsoft Shakeup Finds Xbox and Devices Chiefs Retiring

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Microsoft Shakeup Finds Xbox and Devices Chiefs Retiring originally appeared on Switched on Wed, 26 May 2010 10:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HTC HD2 Video Review

The all new HTC is here boasting the greatest touchscreen display in the history of Smartphones, the HTC HD2 carries a good deal to scream about. Its fair to express the HD title has not managed to move on a great deal, possibly because all HTC’s creative pizzazz was channelled in to the mobile phone by itself. When compared to the first HD, the HD2 is definitely a entire civilisation ahead sporting an excellent variety of upgraded hardware and also software alike. This is without doubt the first contender having a actual chance of conquering the iphone 3gs.

The first thing you see, whether you are a touchscreen display screen fan or not will be the display screen, coming in at 4.3” not only is it the largest upon every mobile phone it is damn outstanding too. A lesser amount of a mobile, more a a thing of beauty the HD2 is 1st choice for elegance. On the front it seems like a solid piece of glass, turn it over and you’re met with with a variety of fingerprint resistant plastic and steel covering, nevertheless more sleek design work from the Taiwanese manufacturer. The front on the device is dominated by the large capacitive screen, which in turn coincidentally provides an additional 1st within touch screen realms, as the display is capacitive HTC has lost the bothersome stylus placing the HD2 among the initial Windows Cellular devices to be entirely finger depending.

The huge capacitive screen will be the first of its kind on the Windows Mobile System, and plenty of work was completed to guarantee that it is superbly responsive. The lightest of touches register immediately and you can touch, flick, scroll as well as swirl you way across the interface with some very original navigational methods. HTC admirers will be familiar with the TouchFlo interface, and also to some level HTC Sense, as seen within the Hero. With the HTC HD2 Sim Free, the most beneficial features of both have been incorporated to generate a super Sense. The effect is really a brand paddling fresh interface, it has got the tabbed menus seen on the TouchFlo software however there’s also numerous visual candy which include a number of awesome animated wallpapers. Widgets have died, as an alternative there’s a foot toolbar for the most important features with each swipe of the display screen brings up a whole new page focused upon an application. All this is completely customisable so that you can pick exactly what features you want to keep or dispose of on the toolbar. The newest improvement on the homescreen is the weather condition application, which is rather self-explanatory. You will enjoy regular updates straight away to the homescreen, which will refers to the animating wallpaper, if it’s cloudy you’ll see clouds winding across the home page, wet, up pop a few helpful windscreen wipers, if its snowing, it will snow and so forth.

Lurking below the heavily layered HTC Sense software is Windows Mobile. The HTC HD2 Sim Free is the very first WinMo device to acquire the Sense overhaul plus it definitely may be worth it. As opposed to countless Mobile phones, the HTC HD2 can certainly multitask 24 hours a day, with out compromising pace. The 1 GHz Snapdragon CPU has a lot to do with that, in addition to a considerable amount of Memory nevertheless let us not get too complex, basically the HTC HD2 will be the quickest Windows Mobile device that can be purchased.

User friendliness aside the HD2 is packed to the rafters utilizing high-end smartphone features. The 5 Megapixel digicam has bagged itself several clever functions which includes auto focus, touch focus along with a duel LED Flash, each one promises to help catch sharp photographs to show off on the high-resolution touchscreen. The Video clip capture is the identical standard and, again the 4.3” display demonstrates it’s value while watching them back. The image gallery itself is similar to the HD’s; photos are assembled within a flicker photograph heap and with some fast finger actions it is possible to flick through all of them without doubt. If you’re into your pictures you’ll really like HTC footprints, it presents an animated log of one’s journeys, supplying you with the chance to high light your most remarkable places. Footprints can immediately save information on your surrounds each and every time you take a photograph. You are able to include thinkings or sounds to each image and may even make use of your photographs to find your path back to the location you took it from while using the very nifty built-in Gps navigation.

Social networks are on the cutting edge of each and every producers strategy and HTC isn’t different. Facebook, Twitting and Youtube all possess a position on the HTC HD2 carrying out status changes and speedy transmission easier than ever. If checking the web your thing then the HD2 features two different web browsers being offered, Opera Mobile and Internet Explorer, and as the second option is slightly sluggish it will have that all important Flash support.