score

Android has widened its lead as the top smartphone OS in the U.S., according to the latest stats from ComScore.

For the three months ending September, Google's mobile platform grabbed 44.8 percent of the market, an increase of almost 5 points from the prior quarter. Apple's iOS retained second place with a 27.4 percent share of U.S. smartphone owners, up slightly from the previous period.

Android and iOS were the only two smartphone operating systems to gain market share.

RIM's BlackBerry took third place with 18.9 percent, a drop of almost 5 … Read more

Even as we lick our lips over Google's upcoming Ice Cream Sandwich update to Android, I'm impressed that even the more modest new Android phones are on board with Gingerbread.

The ZTE Score is one of them. First introduced exclusively through Best Buy, the Score is also Cricket's latest Muve Music phone.… Read more

Android has taken a more commanding lead over iOS in the U.S., research firm ComScore is reporting.

According to the company, Android secured 43.7 percent of the U.S. smartphone OS market during the three-month period ended August 2011, jumping 5.6 percentage points from the 38.1 percent market share it had at the end of May. Apple's iOS platform came in second place with 27.3 percent market share at the end of August, ComScore said. In the three-month period ended May, Apple's operating system secured 26.6 percent of the U.S. smartphone … Read more

The iPhone 5 will benefit three of the top four U.S. mobile carriers, but no clear winner is yet seen among them, according to a report by ComScore.

AT&T, Verizon Wireless, and reportedly Sprint each stand to grab a healthy slice of the market demand for the new iPhone. But each carrier brings something different to the table, making it difficult to predict which one might benefit the most, says ComScore.

Cricket Wireless isn't wasting any more time turning up the volume on its Muve Music service, which adds all-you-can-eat music downloads to its talk, text, and data plan rates.

Almost two weeks after introducing the Samsung Vitality, its first Muve Music smartphone, Cricket is announcing the launch its second Android act, the ZTE Score. But this time Cricket won't be orchestrating the sales; Best Buy will.

In an effort to acquaint a greater audience to the Cricket brand, the prepaid carrier has partnered with national retailer Best Buy to exclusively sell the ZTE Score later this month, as … Read more

Leap Wireless and its Cricket prepaid wireless service are ready to take the national stage.

Starting Sunday, Best Buy will begin selling Cricket in 1,300 stores around the country, and not just within Leap's region.

This marks the first major step for Leap in its effort to turn into a national brand. The company previously operated its network and served customers in select markets as a regional player, but last year signed a reseller agreement with Sprint Nextel to use its network around the country.

The expansion allows Leap to tap into a much wider audience of consumers hungry for more affordable wireless service. But it also puts the company in direct competition with other national players that offer similarly attractive prepaid plans, including T-Mobile USA, Virgin Mobile, and Boost Mobile. These brands are found in both their own stores and at major retailers such as Best Buy as well.

"This was a chance to build national retail into a larger role for us," Leap Chief Executive Doug Hutchinson said in a recent interview with CNET. "I'm looking forward to building that channel."

But with competition already stiff, it's unclear if Leap can keep up. The company is in the midst of turning itself around by focusing more on smartphone customers and truly flat-rate plans, much like fellow regional prepaid provider MetroPCS. But the company is still early in its turnaround, having lost more than 100,000 customers in the last quarter. … Read more

Facebook and Twitter each broke a record last month with the highest number of visitors seen by the sites, according to data released Friday by ComScore.

For the month, Facebook ranked fourth in most visited Web sites in the U.S., behind Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft. The popular social network had 162 million unique visitors, compared with 160 million in June and 157 million in May. And compared with 145 million in July 2010, its latest figures show a rise of more than 11 percent.

Twitter, which was ranked at No. 34, saw 32.8 million people flock to its … Read more

Amazon was the most visited retail site in June, according to new data out today from Comscore.

Compared with all other online retailers, Amazon.com grabbed more than 282 million visitors in June, reaching 20.4 percent of the entire Internet population around the world.

Trailing in second place was eBay.com with 223.5 million visitors, or 16.2 percent of the global audience. Across the world, China's Alibaba Corporation (which includes Taobao, Alibaba.com and Alipay) saw 156.8 million people, or 11.3 percent of all Internet users, visit its sites.

In fourth place in June … Read more

Freekick 2 is a free, ad-supported soccer game that lets you take repeated direct free kicks on a goal.

Freekick 2 looks great, with a photorealistic field and cartoonish players, and it has a fun, easy-to-learn interface that lets you adjust the speed and direction of your shot, including the ability to put a little bend on the ball. You tap arrows to rotate your point of view left and right, and you swipe your finger up an arrow to determine the force and spin of your kick. As you score, the number of defenders rotates between one, two, and … Read more