News

• Teardown shows Xoom costs more to build than iPad

  A teardown analysis of Motorola's Xoom tablet by IHS iSuppli found its materials cost nearly $360, compared with $320 for materials in the comparable 32GB iPad 3G.

• Xoom Android tablet set for sale Thursday at Verizon

  Verizon Wireless will start selling Motorola's Xoom tablet on Feb. 24 for $599.99 with a two-year service agreement, the carrier confirmed today.

• Android drives big smartphone growth in 2010, IDC says

  Worldwide smartphone shipments were up 75 per cent, to 302 million in 2010, a trend driven by impressive Android growth in the fourth quarter, market research firm IDC said.

• Android outranks iPhone in latest ComScore data

  Google's Android outranked Apple's iPhone in total smartphone subscribers in the U.S. at the end of the fourth quarter of 2010, according to survey data released Monday by market research company Comscore.

• Sprint to unveil dual-screen Android phone, report says

  Sprint plans to unveil a dual-screen Android smartphone called the Echo at a New York City event tonight, according to the Wall Street Journal citing an unnamed source.

• T-Mobile unveils Galaxy S 4G smartphone, G-Slate tablet specs

  T-Mobile USA today said the Galaxy S 4G smartphone will ship this month and offered more details on its G-Slate tablet by LG, saying it will have an 8.9-in. 3D-capable display when it ships this spring.

• Mac, iOS gain online share on back of strong sales

  Mac OS X gained share last month by the largest amount since March 2010, while iOS, the operating system that powers the iPhone and iPad, passed two per cent for the first time, a Web metrics vendor said Tuesday.

• Apple rejects Sony e-reader app; Is Kindle next?

  Apple's decision to reject Sony's e-reader application today sparked speculation that Apple would soon yank Amazon's popular Kindle software from the App Store.

• Android 3.0 'Honeycomb' to rely on input gestures, designer says

  Google has big plans for its Android 3.0 OS, code-named "Honeycomb," including its use in a variety of mobile devices, not just tablets, that are driven by gestures without hardware or even soft buttons.

• iPad lead shrinks as tablet sales grow

  On the back of Samsung Galaxy Tab sales, Android tablets grabbed a 22% share of the world's tablet market last quarter, denting for the first time the iPad's dominance, a research firm said today.

• If tablets are PCs, Apple is world's 3rd biggest seller

  When is a tablet not a tablet? When it's a PC.

• iPad leads way as 'media tablet' business grows 45% in Q3 2010

  If it wasn't already obvious, Apple's iPad has led the way to explosive growth in the so-called "media tablet" business. The device almost exclusively led the way to a strong 2010 third quarter that grew by 45 per cent compared to the second quarter, IDC said Tuesday with the release of its first report on the new tablet computer market.

• BlackBerry PlayBook tablet poses big challenge for RIM

  BOSTON -- With dozens of new tablets hitting the market in 2011, Research in Motion (RIM) faces an uphill climb with its upcoming 7-in. PlayBook tablet, which will run its BlackBerry Tablet OS.

• AT&T to lose 26% of iPhone owners to Verizon, survey shows

  More than one-in-four iPhone owners now using AT&T will switch to Verizon, a U.S. consumer survey said today.

• Verizon iPhone impact on Android may be a wash

  Some analysts said Tuesday the iPhone 4G on Verizon Wireless will cannibalize Google Android smartphone sales across various carriers including AT&T early on, while others disagreed.