A recent survey published by Nielsen shows that Android, BlackBerry, and iPhone are among the most popular phones in the U.S., with iPhone and BlackBerry leading with a 27 percent market share each and Android not too far behind with 23 percent and Windows Mobile capturing 14 percent.

The interesting aspect about the survey is that males prefer Android over the iPhone and its iOS operating system (33 percent for Android versus 29 percent for iOS) and that women were more interested in iOS (31 percent to 23 percent). Overall, the iPhone appears to be leading with 35% of those who are looking into purchasing a new phone, while 28% are choosing Android.

The BlackBerry had a victory today after StatCounter showed the platform overtaking the iPhone in web use in the US. They’ve been steadily narrowing the gap over the past year, and now RIM just slightly overtook Apple in traffic, accounting for 34.3 percent of American traffic while iOS slipped to 33 percent. Despite signs of growth before, Android as a web platform has leveled off at just 23.8 percent.

Worldwide figures also show RIM climbing, at 19.25 percent, but it still trailed iOS’ 21.9 percent and was well behind Symbian’s 31.9 percent. If these trends continue, Android and BlackBerry devices could get twice the web share of iOS sometime next year.

Coby’s been selling an Android tablet on the Home Shopping Network for a few months, but now it has just released another model that’s available at retailers across the country. The Kyros MID7015 is a $250 Android tablet that packs in a 7-inch resistive touchscreen.

There’s also Android 2.1 (with apps from the AppsLib marketplace), 4GB of built-in memory, a microSD card slot for expansion and an HDMI port to output full 1080p video. It’s about what you would expect from Coby at that price.

Apple is well known for being way too ban-happy, and the recent banning of an Android Magazine App from the App Store shows that they are still at it. This comes after Apple has stated that its application policies have relaxed a little more of late. Not enough apparently.

Unfortunately for publisher Mediaprovider their recent Android magazine App has been banned from the Apple App Store. Below is the conversation Dixon of Mediaprovider had with Richard of the Apple App Store team, after the app was rejected.

Apple is offering their Find My iPhone service for free now, but that doesn’t mean that Android and BlackBerry users are left out in the cold. That’s because iTag is offering their Premium Membership for free for Cyber Monday.

iTag allows you to locate your device via GPS at any moment. The feature is already available for free to users, but the premium account allows you to backup your contacts over the air, which is very useful if you lose your device without backing up your data first.

The Creative ZiiO 7 Android-powered tablet has taken another step toward entering your hands here in the US since it has now had lunch with the FCC. The device is expected to be priced at GBP199.99 ($315) in the UK, but so far we have no info about how much it will cost stateside.

The ZiiO 7 features specs like a ZiiLabs HD processor, Support for HD video playback, a 7-inch 480 x 800 pixel display, 8GB to 16GB of storage, Wi-Fi b/g, Bluetooth, microSD card expansion and an HDMI output.

Acer has at least one more mysterious Android-powered smartphone. It’s the sleek looking device above which will also have Acer’s customized UI running on top of stock Android ala HTC Sense. Some of the features that we know about this smartphone include a 4.8-inch display with a 1024 x 480 resolution, LED edge lighting and a 1.3-megapixel front facing camera.

There’s also an 8-megapixel camera that can handle 720p HD video recording, and a 6-axis motion sensor. You should expect it to hit the shelves early next year.

Apple’s co-founder Steve Wozniak recently gave an interview to the dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, and it looks like Steve thinks that Android will become the dominant smartphone platform over Apple’s iOS in the long term.

According to Steve Wozniak Android is likely to win the race. He mentioned that the iPhone ‘Has very few weak points. There aren’t any real complaints and problems. In terms of quality, the iPhone is leading’ While he also said that Android does more for more people.

Panasonic has sat out of the smartphone explosion of recent years, but now it apparently wants a slice of the pie. At a news conference today, the head of Panasonic’s mobile division said that the company “misjudged the speed at which smartphones would be taken up in the Japanese market,” and that “with the rapid shift to Android, we want to catch up quickly.”

Panasonic’s phones will be based on Android, and the company hopes to differentiate them by emphasizing their networking capabilities with other Panasonic devices. Panasonic will kick off sales in Japan next year, with overseas markets following in 2012.

The folks over at Engadget have managed to get some details and photos on a new Android smartphone from LG. It is codenamed Star, but surely that name will change when it is released. The LG Star has some impressive specifications, like a dual core Tegra 2 processor and an eight megapixel camera which will be capable of recording Full HD video in 1080p.

Some other specifications include a front facing video camera, a microSD card slot, micro USB and a 1500mAH battery. All indications are that this could be a popular Android smartphone.

This is similar to the Android on an iPhone hack that allowed the first-generation iPhone and iPhone 3G to get Android 2.2 Froyo loaded. Developers are now working together to get Android on the iPad tablet, allowing the device to dual-boot into either the normal iOS environment or to the Android OS.

This is great news for those iPad owners who love to use Android. You could run Flash content while in Android mode. It’s called the OpeniBoot project and developers are targeting the iBoot bootloader on iOS devices, so potentially other operating systems can also get dual-boot privileges, like Linux.

Now that iOS, Windows Phone 7 and seemingly every game console are streaming Netflix video, the company is focusing on Android. In early 2011, Netflix will appear on “select Android devices,” according to the company’s blog, which promises a “standard, platform-wide solution” for Android in the future.

So why did it take so long? And you might also be asking why Netflix will be limited to particular handsets when it first rolls out? They have an answer. “The hurdle has been the lack of a generic and complete platform security and content protection mechanism available for Android,”

Windows Phone 7 isn’t for everyone. Maybe Android is your flavor. If you live in India, Dell has just introduced a pair of new Android phones designed specifically to be sold without a carrier subsidy. The XCD28 sports a 2.8-inch display, a 3.2 megapixel cam, 200MB of internal storage expandable with up to 16GB via microSD, and an FM radio; it sells for the equivalent of $247 without a contract.

The $382 XCD35 has a 3.5-inch capacitive display. Both devices have 3G support for India’s high-speed networks, WiFi, Bluetooth.

The PocketBook IQ 701 and the 602 e-readers are now available to us yanks in the U.S. The Pocketbook IQ 701 sports a 7-inch LCD screen, a 1600mAh battery, the Google Android 2.0 OS, a USB port, a headphone jack, WiFi, an SD card slot and a 533MHz processor.

The Pocketbook 602 features an e-ink display, WiFi, Bluetooth, 2GB of internal storage and a micro SDHC card slot. If you are interested, the PocketBook IQ 701 and 602 Android-powered tablets are priced at $150 and $170.

According to Gartner’s third quarter smartphone data, Android has a 25.5% slice of worldwide smartphone sales, helping it achieve the second place as an operating system, right behind Symbian. Apple’s iOS dropped a bit compared to last year, with 16.6% this time.

Symbian is still at the top spot this year at 36.6%, but their position is being threatened. Global mobile phone sales totaled 417 million units in the third quarter of 2010, a 35 percent increase from the third quarter of 2009.