HTC Corporation

NPD: HTC was leading U.S. smartphone vendor in Q4 2010

As part of their CTIA package, NPD group posted some positive numbers for Android and its vendors.

Taiwan's HTC overtook Apple (AAPL) and RIM (RIMM) to become the leading manufacturer of US smartphones in Q4 2010 according to a report by NPD Group.

HTC's share of the US Market crossed 20% while BlackBerry and Apple slipped to 19%.  Motorola(MMI) rounded out the top four at 16%.  Samsung, LG, Nokia(NOK), HP/Palm (HPQ) and MORE

Android leads industry to larger screen smartphones

According to NPD, a quarter of all smarphones are now four inches and above.

A report today from NPD shows that the face of the smartphone industry is changing, for the bigger.  "The explosion in Web and video content available for smartphones has caused consumers to rethink their phones' sizes," said Ross Rubin, executive director of industry analysis for NPD. "Larger displays offer a richer media experience, as well as a MORE

J.D. Power: iPhone is tops for 5th time

Two Android phone makers lose ground in the most recent consumer satisfaction survey

The iPhone's dominance of J.D. Power's semi-annual consumer satisfaction surveys has become so routine that the venerable marketing company's press release Thursday buried the news after six paragraphs about how owners who use their phones for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and the like are measurably happier with their smartphones than those who don't.

What struck me was not how many MORE

The Facebook Phone won't kill Google's revenues...yet

Facebook's devices seem to be complementary to Google's mobile and search ambitions, but the two companies could butt heads down the road.

Mark Zuckerberg was on hand (virtually, below) at HTC's Mobile World Congress event this morning to personally introduce what Facebook refuses to call the Facebook Phone.  The "mobile social phones"  from HTC (Salsa and Cha Cha pictured, right) look like your garden variety mid-range HTC Sense-laden Androids.

But, they have a MORE

Industry first: Smartphones pass PCs in sales

International Data Corp is showing that in the final quarter of 2010, smartphones passed global PC shipments for the first time in history.

As predicted a few months ago, Smartphones have passed PCs in global numbers.  Today's IDC numbers have Smartphones climbing to over 100 million units for the quarter with Nokia (NOK), RIM (RIMM) and Apple(AAPL) bringing in the majority of those unit shipments.  However, as you can see from MORE

Two new 4G Androids: AT&T's Inspire and T-Mobile's Galaxy S

Both are not entirely new or incredibly groundbreaking but are both interesting for the reasons outlined below.

AT&T (T) was first up today with the announcement of the Inspire 4G, the company's first 4G phone.  As far as specs and aesthetics are concerned, it is pretty much on par with Sprint's (S) EVO 4G, with an 8 megapixel camera, 1GHz Snapdragon processor, a 4.3" screen, etc. The Inspire doesn't have a front-facing MORE

HTC leaks AT&T's 4G hand...wait, what AT&T 4G?

HTC has jumped the gun in a pretty big way.

Android Central posts an HTC ad which appears in this month's Rolling Stone where HTC brags about being the first 4G phone on each of the four major US networks.  The EVO and G2 have been out for months on Sprint and T-Mobile's '4G' networks.  However, the Verizon (VZ) Thunderbolt looks like an unannounced phone that borrows heavily from the design MORE

2011 will be the year Android explodes

Ever-improving networks and a big hardware announcement that will send handset prices plummeting both point to smartphone growth in 2011 that could totally eclipse anything we've seen before.

Smartphones have been growing at an unbelievable clip over the past year but they still account for only around a third of all phones in the US and an even smaller percentage internationally.  In developing countries, the price of smartphones, aside from some MORE

Apple vs. Android: The patent battlemap

A high-tech patent expert has reduced the legal disputes to a 13-part timeline

With the exception of the patent attorneys at each of the litigant's firms, there may be nobody who has followed the legal battles surrounding Apple's (AAPL) iOS and Google's (GOOG) Android better than Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents.

On Friday, Mueller published a long post summarizing the 42 patents-in-suit between Apple and Motorola (MOT) in several venues, from the MORE

iPhone vs. the world: Four Apple patents shot down by staff, 24 to go

Reports of a big win for Nokia in its patent fight with Apple may be premature.

Florian Mueller, who has forgotten more about high-tech patents than most of us will ever know, says we should take with a grain of salt what Bloomberg, Reuters and the IDG News Service are reporting about Apple vs. Nokia, the patent trial that opened Monday before the U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington.

The ITC staff MORE