Shipments of phones running Android grew by a massive 886 per cent, with companies such as HTC, Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and LG running the Google mobile OS.

Nokia still retained the lead with a record 23.8 million smartphones sold in the second quarter of 2010, and took a 38 per cent market share. This was a growth of 41 per cent on a year ago and was due to its focus on affordable touchscreen devices.

RIM BlackBerry shipments grew by 41 per cent due to strong performance of devices like the Curve and the Bold. Apple sales were strong due to sales of the iPhone 4, and made sure that it had a worldwide market share of 13 per cent.

Canalys VP and Principal Analyst, Chris Jones said the research clearly revealed the impressive momentum Android is gaining in markets around the world,’

 “In the United States, for example, we have seen the largest carrier, Verizon Wireless, heavily promoting high-profile Android devices, such as the Droid by Motorola and the Droid Incredible by HTC”.

“These products have been well received by the market, with consumers eager to download and engage with mobile applications and services, such as Internet browsing, social networking, games and navigation.”

The series consists of three handsets in the Cookie, Cookie Style and Cookie 3G, designed for people after social networking tools for a decent price.

The devices all have virtual keyboard which can be used in portrait and landscape mode, a user interface optimised for social media use, threaded instant messaging and email, FM radio, and a Micro SD slot.

The LG Cookie is the most compact of the three with a 2.4 inch touchscreen. The LG Cookie Style is bigger with a 2.8 inch touchscreen, and more customisable with a range of colour options.

The most advanced device of the three is the LG Cookie 3G, designed for faster connectivity and data transmission. It will also carry push technology.

The phones will be available in September. Pricing has not been confirmed, but due to the nature of the phones will be at the lower end of the scale.

The devices show that LG isn’t just focused on the Android Optimus series, and like Microsoft and Nokia is going for an audience who won’t necessarily be able to splash the cash for the latest high powered smartphones.

The company already has stores in Regents Street, White City’s Westfield Centre and others, set to open on 7 August. It will be the company’s 22nd store in the UK, and expected to pull in as many people as the store openings in France and China.

Apple’s year has been better than perhaps even the company has expected, with the iPad creating a tablet market and the iPhone 4 putting it on the top of the smartphone tree.

This is even though suffering bad publicity with iPhone 4 antenna issues, which forced Apple to provide free bumpers for all who were affected.

Now the PA Consulting Group has put its oar in, claiming in a report that the smartphone did suffer connectivity issues compared to other devices.

It said that when handset users carried the phone using the ‘death grip’, the iPhone 4’s performance was significantly worse than other smartphones.

But judging from the store openings, sales and the waiting lists for the iPhone 4, it doesn’t seem to have affected Apple all that much.

There have also been rumours that the company would announce the device, rumoured to be carrying the name ‘Galaxy Tab’, in a couple of weeks.

It is also stated that it will carry a 7-inch touchscreen possibly built with AMOLED, which is smaller than the one carried by the massively popular Apple iPad.

Rumoured specs for the device include it running Android OS 2.2 in Froyo, a 1.2 GHz Samsung Hummingbird CPU, 16GB internal storage with a microSDHC slot, a 3.2 megapixel camera with flash, and front VGA camera.

Most of the big tech firms such as Microsoft have already stated their plans on bringing out tablet devices, while Dell with the Dell Streak already has a Android-based device out.

But Samsung is one of the bigger guns, and the fact that it may bring the tablet out so soon may offer more much needed competition to the iPad, which has so far had much its own way.

It has already had some success with the Samsung Galaxy smartphone, while Android does look to be the OS of choice for Apple’s rivals.

But it will only update European unlocked devices, as British network operators have to their own testing on the device, so network locked owners may need to wait a couple of weeks or so.

"The Android 2.2 (FroYo) update for HTC Desire will start rolling out across Europe this weekend," said the firm in a statement. "As well as including the complete set of Android 2.2 features, the update will contain a few special additions of our own through the latest iteration of HTC Sense."

Some of the new Android 2.2 features include new dedicated shortcuts on the home screen, Exchange support, new camera functionality, and the ability to turn a device into a portable hotspot that can be shared with up to 8 devices.

It can also run multiple keyboard languages and there will be improved performance. As well as this, the Desire will receive specific updates to the sense UI.

There will also be added 720p video capture capabilities on the phone as well as the ability to sync  with iTunes.

Users will be alerted to the over-the-air update automatically and best performed over a Wi-Fi connection.

T-Mobile’s prices are roughly in line with that offered by its competitors Orange, O2 and Vodafone, with 24 month long contracts starting at £25 if you buy the 16GB device for £279 up front.

You can get it for free, but you would need to pay out £60 a month. 3 offers a better deal here, giving you a free iPhone 4 if you pay £45 a month.

But the networks will lock you into a contract for two years, while competitors offer 18 month contracts and it is possible to get an iPhone 4 sim-free from the Apple website which can end up a whole lot cheaper.

It is also possible to get a 12-month option from Tesco Mobile, which uses the O2 network.

The iPhone 4 is very much a success, and it is still very difficult to get hold of the device from Apple, which has a three week shipping wait.

It has suffered much-publicised antenna problems, but this doesn’t seem to have hurt sales much.

This is due to the website Mobilecrunch discovering that RIM had registered the Blackpad.com domain. Considering the device with the name iPad has made such a stir, it wouldn’t be much of a surprise.

Rumours have already circulated around the web about the device. Earlier this month, Rodman & Renshaw analyst Ashok Kumar suggested that RIM was trying to pull forward the launch of a device from early next year to the end of 2010.

A prospective device would carry Wi-F connectivity as well as tethering with BlackBerry smartphones using Bluetooth.

RIM will be one of the many tech companies now working towards bringing out a tablet-style device, with the iPad and Dell Streak being successful as touchscreen tablet devices capture the imagination.

With the possible release of a tablet, the end of 2010 is going to be crucial for BlackBerry, which also has an its BlackBerry 6 operating system due out as well for a new batch of smartphones.

The iPhone 4 has of course blazed a path in the last few weeks, while RIM still faces competition in Android with many of the big smartphone manufacturers looking at it as their OS of choice.

Windows Phone Series 7 is also due, which may take a big chunk of the business market BlackBerry thrive on if successful.

With devices like the Google Nexus One, HTC Desire and Samsung Galaxy X coming out, UK mobile phone owners made a big move to these smartphones.

Android’s share of the UK mobile contract market grew from 3 per cent in the first quarter of 2010 to 13.2 per cent  in the second quarter, said GfK Retail and Technology research.

Although the contract market sales overall stayed the same, Android sales grew by 350 per cent.

Phones with an advanced OS continued to grow, reaching 66.7 per cent in Q2, compared to 55 per cent in Q1 of 2010.

Since 2010 growth has been continuous, and in June phones with an advanced Os represented 73.5 per cent of the contract market.

"The figures suggest an increasing number of consumers are now asking for Android handsets by name," said GfK analyst Megan Baldock.

"Operating Systems are no longer simply a by-product but a key selling point in their own right."

The iPhone 4 would not have had much of an impact on these statistics, as it has just been released, but it will be interesting to see what kind of a dent it would make on Android market share.

It joins the iPhone 4, BlackBerry Bold 9700, HTC Droid Eris, Nokia N97 Mini, Samsung Omnia 2 and iPhone 3GS as smartphones that Apple has shown as examples of devices that suffer signal loss when held in a certain way with the left hand.

Apple has already given its answer to the problem, by giving away free iPhone 4 cases to every iPhone 4 purchaser that wants one. But it still want to prove the susceptibility of all smartphones to the problem, which of course hasn’t made other manufacturers particularly happy.

In the Motorola Droid X’s case, the signal would be cut if held in a certain way with the right hand.

Motorola of course won’t be happy at all with this, as the Droid X is an example of a new Android super phones that it hopes will be one of the devices carrying it to the top  of the mobile phone food chain once again.

Apple not likely to gain any friends by pulling other manufacturers into its problems in this way, but it does prove that it is not alone in the problem.

It made the official statement that it will go for SLCD due to problems with Samsung fulfilling HTC’s demand for AMOLED screens, what HTC was using before on the smartphones.

AMOLED offered better performance and don’t use backlights, which offered power saving benefits. They were also much thinner.

But due to the Samsung not being able to make enough AMOLED panels, HTC is turning to Sony which offers ‘exceptional natural balanced colour, clear contrast, broad viewing angles and improved power efficiency’.

"HTC is experiencing high-demand for many of our phones, specifically our phones with 3.7 inch displays. The new SLCD display technology enables us to ramp up our production capabilities quickly to meet the high-demand," said Peter Chou, CEO of HTC.

"The SLCD displays provide consumers with a comparable visual experience to HTC's current 3.7 inch displays with some additional benefits including battery performance."

Both AMOLED and SLCD offer something different to the iPhone 4, which although offers its ‘retina display’ is still built on older AMLCD panels.

But as companies have discovered, it isn’t so easy to make these panels, which are also generally more expensive.

The company said that the device was “more challenging to manufacture than expected”. So far only the black version has been available to punters, but this delay is a lot longer than was probably expected.

Previous messages from Apple indicated that the white version would come out in mid-July, but it seems that problems have put paid to that.

It hasn’t affected sales though, with iPhone 4 purchases still going through the roof as Apple once again have come out with a smartphone that has captured the imagination of high-end shoppers.

The first month of the iPhone 4 bonanza hasn’t been without its problems. The antenna problem which hit a certain percentage of users caused reams of bad publicity, and ended up in Apple having to offer a free case to new owners.

It has been a big first seven months for Apple, with the iPad launch kickstarting a need for tablet computers, while the iPhone 4 has done its job by answering the questions posed by new Android devices and upcoming new mobile phone technology.

According to Pocket-Lint Greg Sullivan, senior project manager for Microsoft, said we should expect the handsets at launch from the companies. This confirms certain rumours flying around the web.

Details of the Dell Lightning have already been reported, which will be a Windows Phone 7 device. HTC and Samsung have confirmed devices.

Some will have a QWERTY keyboard together with a full touchscreen, and the operating system will not be exclusive to one operator, a concerted effort by Microsoft to get the OS out to as many people as possible.

Sullivan said, “We will offer the best aspects of Android and the best of the iPhone, giving users the flexibility of different form factors, but with the rigidity of apps that are guaranteed to work on every device that is out there.”

Windows Phone 7 also has work to do to beat BlackBerry systems, which has overtaken Windows Mobile’s go-to role for business people in the past few years.

As for Android and Google, Sullivan was coy, “By the time we will launch, we won't have to worry about stealing customers from other operating systems, there will a new wave of smartphone users to embrace for us to still be successful.”

Many of the features are designed for a touchscreen experience rather than the traditional BlackBerry keyboard use, meaning that RIM is obviously going to change focus as well as move even further away from its traditional ‘business’ image.

Included is a bigger focus on the music experience, which will mean album art ‘everywhere’ for access to albums, including an interactive carousel iTunes style which you can swipe.

There is also changes to the way you look at pictures and video. BlackBerry phones with touch support will be able to zoom into an area of interest and select groups of photos to share, copy or paste.

There is also a new thumbnail view to make searching for video easier. You can also play video in different sizes such as original, fit to screen and full screen. A new universal search option also allows you to watch internet video sites like YouTube.

There are also new camera point and shoot capabilities, a podcast app and a better way to search for multimedia content as well as apps.

"The Nokia N8 will be followed soon thereafter by further Symbian^3 smartphones that we are confident will give the platform broader appeal and reach, and kick-start Nokia's fightback at the higher end of the market."

It increases the heat on chief executive Oli-Pekka Kallasvuo, with reports suggesting that Nokia was working on replacing him with somebody much better prepared to battle against rivals like Apple and Google with their own operating systems.

Nokia put a brave face on the results, with Kallasvuo claiming that there were several reasons to still be optimistic about the future due to the company’s grip of the cheaper mobile phone market.

He said, “For one, the global handset market has continued to grow at a healthy pace, led by some of the less mature markets where Nokia is strong.”

“We are also encouraged by the solid second quarter performance of our Mobile Phones business, helped by an improving line-up of affordable models.”

But he recognised that Nokia had fallen some way behind other companies with the high-end market, and put his hopes in the new Symbian^3 OS.

He said, “We believe that the Nokia N8, the first of our Symbian^3 devices, will have a user experience superior to that of any smartphone Nokia has created.”

Nokia around the world is successful due to its superiority when it came to lower-priced phone models. But when it comes to the high-end with advances and pace set by companies like Apple with the iPhone and devices based on the Android operating system, it has so far failed miserably.

The company has failed to respond to the reports Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo would be replaced, saying it would not respond to speculation. But according to a source Nokia board members were going to reach a decision by the end of the month.

It was also claimed that Nokia has already approached the CEO of a major technology company, but that the candidate was not interested in moving to Finland.

Kallasvuo has been head since 2006. He has overseen a period where Apple has pulled away in the high-end smartphone market with the iconic iPhone, while Nokia devices have generally pulled by the wayside.

It is still dependent on Symbian, with a new version out later this year, but this will need to fight hard to roll with the punches dealt by its rivals.

It will offer a free case to every owner of an iPhone 4 from 22 July who applies via the Apple website. The company can’t make enough for all owners, but will offer a range of cases from suppliers.

According to reports of the retail case prices, the effort could end up costing Apple around £118 million. The cases will be offered to until 30 September.

The offer comes after a problem was reported widely about an issue where phone signal strength was drained if the phone was held in a particular way.

Countering the accusations, Jobs said it was a media storm created from a minor issue that affected a small minority of users.

Jobs also claimed in a video that the signal drops affected other phones from BlackBerry, Nokia and Samsung, which the companies were quick to react against, trying to distance themselves from media storm.

Companies said that Apple could have avoided the problem if it allowed operators to test out the phone before putting it up on sale.

Pictures provided for Boy Genius Report provided by an AT&T employee showed images of a fried iPhone 4 which was sent to a store for repair but looked unfixable.

It was said to have caught on fire while being hooked to a computer using an Apple USB cable which accompanied the device.

The source said the phone bezelo went extremely hot and slightly burned the user’s hand.

Apple has had problems of this kind before. It has been previously reported that MacBook batteries also went faulty resulting in combustion in the past.

A reader called Carlos Martins also wrote a post on the story claiming that he was faced with an ‘excess temperature’ warning with the iPhone 4 entering ‘safe mode’.

He wrote, “A couple days ago, while doing a UStream from my iPhone 4 I had to plug it to charge it (while streaming), and in a couple of minutes I got my first ever “excess temperature” warning – with the iPhone entering safe mode!)”

“Yesterday, as I plugged it to charge at night like usual, it began heating up seriously!”

“I suspect there’s a serious bug in the charging algorithm: i rebooted the iPhone (while plugged in; so no chance for “bad plug/connection) and it began charging as it should, in a much cooler and normal way.”

“One more bug Apple needs to fix urgentely for 4.0.1!”

According to the YouGov Smartphone Mobile Internet Experience study, of smartphone users only a third will expect to get a Nokia as a new handset, compared to 46 per cent in December 2009. This is a drop of 10 per cent.

Apple holds sway over the market, with 56 per cent of smartphone users considering and 41 per cent expecting to get an iPhone next time around.

Although it is losing popularity, the Nokia name still has resonance, as the 46 per cent figure is still larger than 31 per cent with BlackBerry and 18 per cent going with HTC.

Most worryingly for Nokia is the fact that even less people were willing to recommend one of its smartphones. Its ‘recommend score’ dropped by 15 per cent to just 12 per cent.

They key reasons for this fall included lack of apps, poor quality of the OS, and some wanting to change the brand.

Russell Feldman, Research Manager in YouGov’s technology and telecoms team said, “Where Nokia once led the market, it has drastically fallen by the wayside...significantly outperformed by both Apple’s Apps store and Android Marketplace.”

“The results of our data consistently show that the market leader is fast becoming an also-ran in the smartphone market. New products, software and apps are needed soon if Nokia is to keep up with its rivals.”

The Wall Street Journal revealed that it would run on Google’s mobile operating system, but had no details of pricing or where it would be sold.

It also release the Android-based Optimus series, ten smartphones which will start appearing at the end of 2010. The Optimus Chic and Optimus One will be the first two devices released.

Gladly for LG users, they will ship with Android 2.2 ‘Froyo’ edition of the Google OS, its latest and greatest version.

Many manufacturers have been held back by the fact they are still working with older editions of the Google OS, with users still looking for updates that still haven’t been delivered.

The company will also release smartphones not only based on Android but also on other operating systems such as Windows 7, which should be out by Christmas.

The tablet is an effort to take advantage of a new market built by the success of the iPad, and also joins Dell which released its own effort in the Streak. Samsung also expects to have a new tablet out by the end of the year.

According to an official statement, Microsoft intends to focus on smartphones carrying its Windows 7 operating system, which it intends to bring out around Christmas time in order to compete with devices such as the iPhone 4 and Android-based phones.

Redmond said, “We have made the decision to focus exclusively on Windows Phone 7 and we will not ship KIN in Europe this fall as planned.”

“Additionally, we are integrating our KIN team with the Windows Phone 7 team, incorporating valuable ideas and technologies from KIN into future Windows Phone releases.”

“We will continue to work with Verizon in the US to sell current KIN phones.”

The Kin was a hyped device that made its debut a couple of months ago targeting the users looking for a reasonably low-budget smartphone with social networking capabilities.

Unfortunately compared to high-end devices the phone pales in comparison, missing key features that users of today are expecting with a costly monthly fee.

Windows 7 is the operating system Microsoft is looking at to put it ahead of the pack, but may be facing a losing battle as consumers rush to snap up the latest Apple and Android offerings from a range of handset makers.

It is a reply to reports that some left handed users, or those who gripped the iPhone 4 in a certain way, caused reception to drop by 4 or 5 bars after covering the black strip in the lower left corner of the metal band.

This was a bigger drop than usual, with some accusing the iPhone 4 of having a fault antenna design.

In a statement Apple explained, “Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong.”

“Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display 4 bars when we should be displaying as few as 2 bars.”

“Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don’t know it because we are erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars. “

“Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place.”

Apple said it was fixing the problem with a software update, but any unhappy customers could get a full refund within 30 days of purchase.

According to Fierce Developer, Valtteri Halla said that there could be cooperation between Meego and Android. It could also make its cross platform development toolset Qt work much closer with Android.

He said, “There will be certain cooperation and convergence between MeeGo and Android going forward - there's an interesting opportunity to share that investment and commonalities and compliances there over time.”

Although Nokia is focusing more on MeeGo with high end devices like tablets, he made it clear that Symbian was still its priority. There was a suggestion that MeeGo would power the top of the range N series while Symbian focused on the X series.

He said MeeGo and Symbian were "different platforms, but we're both using similar technologies as we go forward, and the APIs are based on the Qt developer toolkit and API, and the Qt software developers kit, so that provides a really broad basis of commonality between the two platforms."

Symbian has obviously had its problems in the face of a barrage of smartphone competition, but we await its open source Symbian^3, on the Nokia's N8 to see whether it can match up.

According to the magazine PC Advisor, a figure of 25.3 per cent of smartphone users own an iPhone, which is an increase of 17.2 per cent from the same poll last year.

It appears the the BlackBerry is the main casualty of the iPhone’s increasing popularity. Last year 15 per cent of smartphone users had one, but this has decreased to 9.7 per cent.

Although Nokia doesn’t have a real footing with high-end smartphones, a number of people still carry the devices, with 19.6 per cent of people saying that they used one

HTC came in third and Samsung fourth, with 13.6 per cent and 13.4 per cent of votes respectively.

Only smartphone users took the poll, but according to PC Advisor many people were still unsure about the benefits of such devices.

The figures match results from analysts which showed that shipments of the iPhone have increased significantly, while devices from BlackBerry have been left somewhat behind.

There is also the upcoming threat of Android, with devices like the HTC Desire and the Samsung Galaxy Apollo already causing a dent in sales of BlackBerry phones, which still don’t embrace touchscreen.

Android 2.2 gets new features for users and developers, such as changes to the home screen, exchange support and camera and gallery fixes. There are also multiple keyboard languages.

The Nexus One can be also be turned onto a portable hotspot shared with up to 8 devices, and will also allow it to be used as a 3G connection for a Windows or Linux laptop.

Performance of the browser will also be improved, which will mean a faster loading of JavaScript-heavy pages.

In order to access the update, users will get a message on their phone’s notification bar. They simply download the update, install, and it should work. Most users will receive the notification by the end of the week.

HTC also confirmed that its Desire, Legend and Wildfire devices will get Android 2.2 before Q3 of 2010.

HTC quoted it as saying in a statement, “We are working hard with our partners to update the HTC Sense experience on Froyo and distribute it to our customers as fast as possible.

“We expect to release updates for several of our 2010 models including Desire, Legend and Wildfire beginning in Q3.”