Apple retained its crown as the number one handset manufacturer among consumers in the U.S., while Google's Android operating system remained the number one platform, according to comScore's latest MobiLens and Mobile Metrix reports. These figures measure smartphone ownership and cover the three months ending January 2014.
Apple beat out rival Samsung with 41.6 percent market share as compared to Samsung's 26.7 percent. When comparing changes over the measured periods, Apple, Samsung and LG made small gains, while Motorola and HTC fell. Apple's market share continues to grow, but its rate of adoption is slowing.
Apple may be the top handset maker, but iOS is outnumbered by the volume of Android phones on the market. Apple's iOS platform was number two with 41.6 percent of the smartphone market, while Google's Android OS was number one with 51.7 percent market share in the recently ended period.
iOS was only the platform to gain ground in the three-month period, inching up from 40.6 percent in the period ending October 2013 to 41.6 percent in the most recent period. Android and BlackBerry lost ground, with each platform dropping 0.5 percentage points.
comScore measures both ownership and usage across a customer's primary smartphone and tablet. It uses an intelligent online survey as well as both panel and census-based measurement methods to compile its data.
Friday December 12, 2025 10:56 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Macworld's Filipe Espósito today revealed a handful of features that Apple is allegedly planning for iOS 26.4, iOS 27, and even iOS 28.
The report said the features are referenced within the code for a leaked internal build of iOS 26 that is not meant to be seen by the public. However, it appears that Espósito and/or his sources managed to gain access to it, providing us with a sneak peek...
Monday December 15, 2025 3:05 pm PST by Juli Clover
Software from an iPhone prototype running an early build of iOS 26 leaked last week, giving us a glimpse at future Apple devices and iOS features. We recapped device codenames in our prior article, and now we have a list of some of the most notable feature flags that were found in the software code.
In some cases, it's obvious what the feature flags are referring to, while some are more...
Monday December 15, 2025 2:05 pm PST by Juli Clover
Last week, details about unreleased Apple devices and future iOS features were shared by Macworld. This week, we learned where the information came from, plus we have more findings from the leak.
As it turns out, an Apple prototype device running an early build of iOS 26 was sold, and the person who bought it shared the software. The OS has a version number of 23A5234w, and the first...
The first foldable iPhone will feature a series of design and hardware firsts for Apple, according to details shared by the Weibo leaker known as Digital Chat Station.
According to a new post, via machine translation, Apple is developing what the leaker describes as a "wide foldable" device, a term used to refer to a horizontally oriented, book-style foldable with a large internal display....
Monday December 15, 2025 4:23 pm PST by Juli Clover
Apple is testing iOS 26.3, the next version of iOS 26 that will launch around January. Since iOS 26.3's testing is happening over the holidays, it is a smaller update with fewer features than we've seen in prior betas.
We've rounded up what's new so far, and we'll add to our list with subsequent betas if we come across any other features.
Transfer to Android
Apple is making it simpler...
Friday December 12, 2025 10:10 am PST by Juli Clover
Apple today released iOS 26.2, the second major update to the iOS 26 operating system that came out in September, iOS 26.2 comes a little over a month after iOS 26.1 launched. iOS 26.2 is compatible with the iPhone 11 series and later, as well as the second-generation iPhone SE.
The new software can be downloaded on eligible iPhones over-the-air by going to Settings >...
Thursday December 11, 2025 8:49 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple seeded the second iOS 26.2 Release Candidate to developers earlier this week, meaning the update will be released to the general public very soon.
Apple confirmed iOS 26.2 would be released in December, but it did not provide a specific date. We expect the update to be released by early next week.
iOS 26.2 includes a handful of new features and changes on the iPhone, such as a new...
Monday December 15, 2025 7:41 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple released the AirPods Max on December 15, 2020, meaning the over-ear headphones launched five years ago today. While the AirPods Max were updated with a USB-C port and new color options last year, followed by support for lossless audio and ultra-low latency audio this year, the headphones lack some of the features that have been introduced for newer generations of the regular AirPods and the ...
while I find those numbers always very interesting - it is also amusing to look at different outlets reporting very different outcomes, always massaged to show what the core readership wants to read (or which message the author wants to send).
As usual, depending on how you look at the numbers, you can read almost anything in them, e.g. looking at manufactures vs OS vs devices (and even there it depends on what do you include in which group).
Bottom line: everyone is doing just fine, nobody is doomed and people have the choice and can buy devices based on there preferences and needs. So it is good news for everyone, even though many try to read bad news for some into it.
Could be that people who jumped ship just to try out Android are probably realizing that the grass isn't quite so greener on the other side and are slowly trickling back to iOS's great user experience, Apple's excellent customer service, and the richness of the App Store.
I jumped ship from android after 3 years, to ios (loving ios BTW), after getting sick of google being constantly in my face with Google+, eliminating drag&drop to SD, trying to do away with SD cards completely, doing away with privacy, taking away features with each update, and never ending lag issues. I hope to someday have a pure open source phone but until that day I guess I'll stay with ios. Google can go fsck themselves.
