Over the last few years it seems as though the iPhone has really sparked a greater interest in smartphones, and has managed to show consumers what handheld devices are capable of doing. Of course they aren't alone in the market with both Windows Mobile devices and Blackberries all competing to be the one you carry in your pocket.

It was just a few days ago that Google unveiled their idea to come out with a central market for Android developers to share their latest creations, and now Microsoft is hot on their tail. The istartedsomething blog noticed a few job postings that Microsoft made regarding something called Skymarket.

Yesterday was a pretty big day for the Google Android mobile platform. For starters Google announced that the very first handsets shipping with Android will have a Beta version of what they call Android Market.

It was almost one year ago that we first got a glimpse of what Firefox Mobile looked like running on the Nokia N800. Then in January we saw some mockups of what their iPhone-like interface might look like for other devices, and even more recently we saw a video demonstration that knocked our socks off with an intuitive tab navigation system.

Nokia has ponied up and bought a large chunk of Symbian that they didn't already own, which equates to another 52%. For those of you unfamiliar with Symbian it is the software platform that powers the Nokia devices, and one analyst estimates that Nokia paid close to $250 million a year in licensing fees for it.

Earlier this year we posted some mockups of the Firefox Mobile that looked a lot like the Safari browser does on the iPhone.

Verizon Wireless is about to make a pretty big purchase which will give them a pretty big title. According to Reuters, Verizon Wireless is all set to purchase Alltel Corp. (another mobile service provider) for $28.1 billion dollars. Once this purchase is complete, Verizon will take over AT&T's spot as the largest player in the U.S. mobile market in terms of subscribers.

Last week Google hosted a conference that was geared towards developers, and during the keynote they showed off some of the cool things that the Android mobile operating system was capable of doing. In it's current state I would say that Android doesn't appear to be quite as polished as the iPhone, but the functionality is definitely awesome.

Opera Mini was born back in 2005, but it wasn't put into the hands of the public until January 2006. Since that time the browser that fits in your pocket has experienced a tremendous rate of growth. As of March 2008 it has wiggled it's way into the hearts of over 44 million users. Pictured to the right is what their growth rate has looked like since its public launch.

One of the big complaints many people have always had with cell-phone providers over the years is that they like to charge on both ends, meaning they charge you for outgoing and incoming calls. Now we know not all providers do this because some do offer free incoming calls, but a majority of the providers out there, at least the ones we know of, still do this.