This chart from Fierce Developer shows that while Apple and RIM have been booming, and Symbian and Android have shown decent growth for smaller players, Palm webOS and Windows Mobile have been largely stagnant. Microsoft even managed to lose market share between May and July. At the rate this is going, the two carriers will need some drastic changes to stay in the game. For Palm, the answer could be as simple as an expanded or refreshed product line. For Microsoft, though, it looks like a fix won't be coming any time soon. [Comscore via Fierce Developer via Electronista]

Twitter user Beninato quotes Ballmer in saying "This will not happen again" and "We've pumped in some new talent," and Pjozefak gives the blockquote in our headline: Microsoft screwed up with Windows Mobile, and it should have already launched. We've seen a few promising bits previews of Windows Mobile, notably the browser in the Zune HD (it's not perfect, but it bodes well), but Windows Mobile has been a stinker for years now and Microsoft had better bust out the big guns to get it right with WinMo 7. [Twitter and Babbling VC via WMPowerUser via MobileTechWorld via Engadget]

TamsS60 spoke with Symbian Foundation rep David Wood, who explained that theyre killing the Avkon UI engine, in favor of Qt, meaning there will be a binary break when it comes to S60 apps. The term "revolutionary" was also thrown around with regard to UI changes. All hope isn't lost yet, Symbian fanboys. Then again, we're probably gonna have to wait another year (at least) for this. [TamsS60 via Engadget Mobile via BGR]

I sat through the entirety of Roger Smith's presentation at the Symbian show yesterday and I did NOT come away with that impression one single bit. Methinks some Yahoo reporter just got a little over-excited for an interesting headline. I'm calling major BS and misinterpretation on this one.

Frankly it makes me even more suspect of some of the reporting on technical subjects out there.

Bottom line: I heard this supposed "announcement" first hand and I did not hear him say anything approaching what the reporter is saying.

We have no plans to standardize on one platform for our smart devices.

We want to give our wireless customers maximum choice – in innovative devices, applications, operating systems, and more. One way to maximize customer choice is to begin to reduce fragmentation in the wireless OS environment. That is why we are a member of the Symbian Foundation.

That fragmentation puts a heavy burden on wireless carriers, handset makers, and especially apps developers, who have to create for multiple operating systems and sometimes for multiple versions of the same operating system.

0:02: Main menu is contained in a drawer that slides from the bottom of the screen
0:08: Multiple home screens can be flipped with touch gestures, a la the iPhone
0:20: Icons can be dragged from the main menu to build customized home screens. Dragging to the menu drawer trashes the home screen shortcut
0:38: Dialer screen, followed by the call behavior. Calls can continue in the background, and all functions that don't require data transfer can work concurrently (This is currently a software regulation, as 3g networks should theoretically allow for simultaneous voice and data usage).
0:53: Ongoing calls and other notifications can be accessed by dragging the taskbar down.
1:20: Browser displays Gizmodo. Rendering is quite good, page navigation is a fairly intuitive rehash of current touch-control schemes. It's not terrible good at guessing column widths during double-tap zooming, but seems very usable. Preview magnification feature is useful for smaller screens or text-heavy pages.
2:22: "Tabbed" browsing feature lays out a grid of pages, with previews
2:45: Google Maps app. As you can see, this is among the more polished apps, and will feel familiar to anyone who has used Google Maps on the desktop or mobile devices.
3:30: Google Maps Street View.
4:00: Home screen include widgets (Google Search, a clock and a picture frame are the only ones for now) that can be dragged around the home screen(s).
4:23: The music apps relies on a panel of icons (a recurring theme in Android)
4:30: Message composition is unremarkable, but there is no sign of an on-screen keyboard at the moment. This could be a customization catered the the first round of Android phones, at least one of which will have a slide-out keyboard.
5:12: The camera naturally doesn't work in the emulator, but there are currently very few options in its menus.
5:50: Wallpaper switching. This is one of the few areas where Android excels aesthetically. Wallpaper scrolls as home screens are switched, but at a slower rate that the icons. This creates a convincing illusion of depth.
6:11: The home screen can also be modified via the system menu, where you can choose to add applications, widgets and shortcuts, as well as change the wallpaper.

It's hard to pass judgment on Android in the condition it's in. What's there is impressive, but there are so many glaring omissions, at least from a consumer standpoint. There is a fantastic system for managing ongoing calls and system messages (via the pull-down taskbar) but no apps to take advantage of it. Email and IM would suit such a configuration beautifully, but neither is included in this release. And seriously, where is the calendar? The organizer? A video app? Youtube support?

Sure, these things could be left to the developer community, but Google already has messaging, email, video and calendar services, so it's reasonable to expect that they be included by default in Android. Before a public release, Android should at least possess a feature set comparable to your average candy bar phone, courtesy of Google, so that the eager open-source development community can devote their effort to creating new, innovative apps and modifications for the OS.

Objections aside, the progress is promising. In terms of usability, Android is much easier to navigate and customize than virtually all other mobile solutions. With a few more apps, Android will be a clear choice over Windows Mobile, skinned or not. You can download the SDK and play with the emulator yourself, if you want. Just a word of warning, though — explaining to your family or significant other that you're testing an emulated prerelease of an upcoming mobile OS is about as hard as it sounds. [Google Android, Android on Giz]