The newly added widgets will not be attached to any grid; they can be liberally moved between several home screens. Over-the-air updates will be available for existing Symbian^3 smartphones and ship with future phones.

Moreover, Nokia, which is the biggest Symbian propagator, has just announced that the company will focus on Windows Phone 7 handsets. However, Symbian sales will be continued into 2012 and even beyond.

The main part of the spectacular rise Android has shown was owed to a large number of manufacturers, many of them becoming fervent Android supporters after being almost unknown before. Many of them had been involved since 2009. Acer, LG, HTC and Samsung have seen extraordinary gains which ranged from 371 percent for HTC up to 4,127 percent for LG and thus became significant players on the smartphone market. Sony Ericsson and Motorola are known as having saved themselves by dropping Symbian or Microsoft in favour of Android for high-end hardware.

Even Apple lost a slight market share and has 16 percent exactly, in spite of doubling its shipments compared to 2009. Microsoft and Research in Motion faced important decreases. The BlackBerry lost 5.6 percent, reaching 14.1.percent, with many of its users converted to Android. At the same time, the arrival of Windows Phone 7 was not enough to prevent Microsoft from losing more than half of its share, reaching 3.1 percent.

The main battleground is still the United States, where RIM spectacularly regained the first spot as an individual phone designer and Apple shipped fewer iPhones. HTC still has the third place and contributed to Android’s overall lead.

However, Canalys warned that the outlook for Android is not as certain in 2011. The launch of the iPhone on Verizon means that the carrier will no longer devote all its attention to Android and the latter could consequently lose market share this year, according to analyst Tim Shepherd. Google is expected to count on more Android devices on AT&T to keep the balance.

The largest phone manufacturer for all types is still Nokia, but the end of its lead as a top smartphone OS maker represents the end of the Symbian era. The platform of the company had been uncontested for about a whole decade and began to decline only when the iPhone successfully entered European markets.

Even if Apple has lost share despite the surge of the iPhone 4, from 17.1 percent to 16.7 percent, the number of devices helped it move ahead of Research in Motion. Android was the single platform with an obvious large gain. Since the launch of the Motorola Droid in November last year, it jumped from only 3.5 percent to 25.5 percent and is now much closer to the rival Symbian.

The share detained by Windows Mobile has dropped from 7.9 percent to only 2.8 percent. Microsoft let its platform ramp down and switched to Windows Phone. Another actor, Linux, also moved downwards, from 4.7 percent to 2.1 percent.

Considering the total cellphone industry, Nokia, still in lead, has however dropped to 28.2 percent. Its rivals, LG and Samsung, also dropped to 6.6 percent and 17.2 percent respectively. RIM and Apple gained share, at 2.9 percent and 3.2 percent respectively, because their competitors still rely heavily on basic phones, which brought the two smartphone producers an important advantage. It is also the case of HTC, which relies mainly on Android and has doubled the total phone share, reaching 1.6 percent.

Gartner believes that the downward pressure on Nokia is mainly due to the “white-box” Asian producers. Small companies, frequently based in China, have staked out large claims in China, India, Latin America, Africa and Russia. The combined share of these companies is now 33 percent and therefore larger companies are fighting for a significantly smaller share than they had in the past.

According to analysts, the phone share was not plainly representative for a specific platform’s influence. Unlike Symbian or Google, Apple was advantaged by its iPod touch and iPad and gave its iOS more actual presence. Other companies like Samsung, for instance, begun to make MP3 players and Android tablets, but these devices have significantly smaller share where every other Android-based device is a smartphone.

The data also shows that a Verizon iPhone may have a volatile effect on Android. Google depends mainly on Verizon in the United States, with about 75 to 80 percent of its smartphone sales using the OS. Android has been iterating fast and touching both budget and high-end areas, but an eventual softening of Android sales at Verizon from the iPhone may affect the platform itself. The preferred choice of platform for Verizon has been changing from Windows Mobile to BlackBerry and later to Android after unsuccessful challenging of the rapid increase in iPhone sales.

Some researchers have blamed BlackBerry’s limited profile in touchscreen devices. Apart from its Storm2, tepidly received, and the not enough tested Torch, RIM avoided touchscreens and often proclaimed its hardware keyboards as attraction points. The two above mentioned phones use the same touchscreen, with a size of 3.25 inches and a resolution of 480×360, as well as the same processor as in devices made in 2008. This was not enough to lure customers away from the iPhone on AT&T or from Android smartphones on Verizon.

Nokia’s drop is attributed to its aging Symbian platform, while its small application store also had a negative impact on customers.

Research in Motion still keeps chances to regain the lost position as it is expected to ship between 13.8 and 14.4 million BlackBerry handsets in fall. The company has objected to the comparison with Apple, since their fiscal quarters end a month apart and this does not reflect the actual performance of RIM. On the other hand, Apple has mentioned it was shipping every phone it could even after the increase of the production. In their short history, the sales of the iPhone have multiplied during the holidays.

Multiple blows have affected Symbian recently and some of its main proponents at Nokia have voluntarily or involuntarily left. For example, Nokia’s CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo left the company in September due to dissatisfaction with his inability to stop losing market share. The Finnish phone builder also lost Anssi Vanjoki, its smartphone team leader, who will leave the company soon.

Considered the default platform for smartphones in its god times, Symbian has been dropped by Sony Ericsson and Samsung because Android has offered them more advanced features and access to a partly open-source operating system, largely free at the same time. Although Symbian^3 has brought the operating system almost up to date with respect to multi-touch and other characteristics already available on other platforms for years, critics still say it is too close to the old S60 platform.

Symbian is currently a minority of Sony Ericsson’s mix; the departure would, however, be a considerable wound to Symbian. This has been recast as an open-source project; losing the phone maker would leave Nokia as virtually the only phone designer using the operating system. Moreover, the other major partner, Samsung, is already downplaying Symbian in favor of its own Bada and even Android. However, Nokia is partly moving away too, as the N9 and other Nseries handsets will run on the manufacturer’s own MeeGo.

The official Sony Ericsson position still underlines three separate platforms.

Motally’s work may prove critical for keeping and expanding development for Nokia’s Ovi Store. Lately, the phone manufacturer’s portal has faced loads of complaints from developers, because they either haven’t earned enough money compared to other platforms or have faced confusing application submission processes and even long delays. The new acquisition will most likely help Nokia and developers to place ads in ways that could generate revenue and streamline the interface in order to improve reviews and also downloads.

Even if Nokia has a much larger market share compared to other smartphone manufacturers, the company has a far smaller footprint in applications than Google’s Android or Apple’s iOS. This lack of motivation to use the platform has already led to declines in market share because the iPhone and multiple Android devices have continually increased in sales.

The new update also stands as a sweeping review, in order to bring in iOS features and let Fring run in the background to take a voice or video call. A log of conversations and social network updates of all types is shown by a new social stream; therefore, the address book should be much easier to use. Outside of any 3G data rates, Fring and video calls are free.

Nokia’s new handset will benefit from Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, as well as from an HDMI output; earlier rumors of support for North America’s 850MHz and 1,900MHz 3G bands are confirmed too. Latest pictures don’t show the MeeGo operating system; despite this, the hardware on the device seems to be already ready. It is yet unknown when the handset will arrive in North America, though many expect it to be available this year.

Also reinforced by the study was the slow growth of well established manufacturers of smartphones as well as the growth of Android which is an important part of the context. The overall growth in the smartphone area was 38 percent in 2009. However, Symbian, Nokia’s preferred platform had only an 18 percent growth, which means 57 million users. Meanwhile, Apple has grown 161 percent and reached about 10 million users. Research in Motion has jumped 87 percent and has got 4.6 million users for its BlackBerry. Android has reached 2,429 percent, but had a very small share in the month of April 2009, which is the smallest share in the group, with 1.8 million users.

Windows Mobile has gained only eight percent during the past year and consequently has given away an important part of its relative share.

Apple’s situation is expected to be improved further by the launch of the iPhone 4. This would happen mostly at the expense of the Finnish company Nokia. The 600,000 pre-orders worldwide Apple has got are much higher than what was expected, while Nokia has low expectations for its spring worldwide sales. Apple’s launch sales could even be higher as in-store reservations and walk-in purchases are not included in this number.

The study has also mentioned that Symbian users, among European owners of smartphones, are the least likely to utilize their handsets for smartphone-level features. Almost all iPhone owners utilize their phones fully for applications, web and media. A net majority of Android phone owners have the same behavior.