Google’s Android and Apple’s iPhone are rapidly snatching smartphone share as the race to ascendancy sees the competition sent to casualty. The latest Gartner figures today tell us Android and iPhones are gobbling up the space. Between them they now account for 25 percent of the smartphone market (in Q1), up from 12 percent last year. The iPhone took 15.4 percent of the whole thing (up 5 points). Android is up 8 points to 9.6 per cent. What’s critical here is that all other smartphones lost relative share, though unit sales climbed. Android is now the fourth largest operating system, displacing…

A survey of 4,000 UK shoppers has declared Apple’s iPhone to be a more important invention than flushing toilets or space travel. The smartphone has also been voted more important than the combustion engine and washing machine. The study, conducted for Tesco Mobile, puts the iPhone in eighth place on a 100 item list (below). The wheel was voted the most important invention in history, ahead of the plane, lightbulb, the world wide web and computers. Lance Batchelor, Chief Executive Officer of Tesco Mobile, said: “It’s amazing to see how much the iPhone is valued, sitting alongside inventions…

Newly-leaked images and video show us the next-generation iPod touch will host a camera. Apple had originally been expected to field a camera in the iPod touch when it upgraded that device in September 2009. The introduction was preceded by a wave of leaked images showing a camera in place. Fast forward to release and the camera wasn’t included in the upgrade, though eagle-eyed users spotted a space on the motherboard where it could have been. Now the latest news from Vietnam tells us to expect the camera to appear in the next iteration of the touch. This follows the brief appearance of two prototype…

Attention US iPhone users — it looks like AT&T and Apple are at last making good on their long-held promise to offer tethering support through the iPhone, but not until the release of iPhone OS 4.0 later this summer. This illustration comes from inside the iPhone OS 4.0 beta that’s circulating at present, though the number given takes you to a recorded message saying “AT&T doesn’t offer tethering at this time”. Tethering — the process of using your iPhone as a 3G modem with your Mac — is really useful when traveling, or as a home back-up Internet connection for when your broadband goes…

Hot on the heels of Square, an iPhone add-on for making payments on the go, Visa has announced In2Pay, an iPhone case that contains a chip to allow users to provide pamyent on the go by swiping their iPhone. The add-on plugs into the bottom of the iPhone and allows you to insert a MicroSD card. With an app from the App Store, you can swipe your iPhone over a terminal, enter a password and voila, no need for that cumbersome credit card in your wallet. There are of course, a number of downsides. Since the iPhone currently does not support multitasking, you must open the app, wait for it to load, hold your phone…

After announcing back in early April that Twitter had purchased Atebits, it appears an official iPhone and iPad client is due soon. Tweetie for iPhone has disappeared from the App Store, which hopefully means we should be seeing Twitter for iPhone soon. The last Tweetie update featured a slot machine animation announcing the new version coming soon, but the app disappearing from the store is a sure sign we are in for a treat pretty soon. Loren Brichter, the man behind Atebits, has apparently been hard at work, but I’m hoping that Twitter for iPhone and iPad isn’t really too far away from Tweetie,…

Companies, both big and small, are now connecting with consumers like never before. By utilizing advancements in technology they have been able to develop more personal relationships which ultimately translate into cold hard cash. Just ask Dell, whose “DellOutlet” Twitter account has generated them an estimated 3+ million dollars. Many of these companies focus most of their technology budgets on the internet but many are starting to allocate funds to support research into using mobile platforms for their benefit. It’s hard to imagine that anything that benefits a large corporation…

Sure, we all like to think we know how to cope in a crisis. We all fondly imagine ourselves the heroes of the moment, the masters of the hour, but how many of us have actually put some time in before crisis cripples us and learned the right things to do when someone needs our help, or even set things up so we can get the help we need? Read on for six iPhone apps we think could maybe save someone’s life. None of these apps are a substitute for proper training, if you really want to be prepared then do take a course, but for a refresher or to boost your skills just a little bit, then tale a look at these. 1. First Aid…

Standard Chartered bankers are now being given a choice in which smartphone they would like to use. The moneylender is giving its corporate BlackBerry users the choice to switch over to the iPhone for their business dealings; this could be bad news for BlackBerry. “If more companies switch to the iPhone, this is of course bad news for [Research in Motion],” said Lu Chialin, an IT industry analyst at Macquarie Securities in Taipei. “However, it will take a long time for companies to do their own internal testing before deciding to change, so it will be a while before it has any effect on RIM.” The BlackBerry…

That’s my second ‘i- prefix’ headline joke today. I’m on a roll. A couple of days ago I made all y’all privvy to a non-illustrator who is teaching himself to paint via the iPad. Now, check out what happens when a pro illustrator gets his hands on an iPhone. Kristofer Strom is a fellow illustrator I’d heard tell of before, but now he’s getting internet famous by vowing to draw something with his iPhone every day for ‘some time’. Like a true career artist, he readily admits his eventual procrastination and laziness. I respect that. Anyway, don’t not click here to rub your eyes all over the blog he’s using…