Google Play is on a growth spurt, but Apple is still tops in app sales. Over the past four months, Google’s app store saw its daily sales jump by 43 percent across the 20 countries measured by analytics provider Distimo in a report out today. At the same time, sales growth for Apple’s App Store …

Shipments of 4G LTE smartphones will triple next year, research firm Strategy Analytics predicts. The research firm sees shipments rising to 275 million next year from this year’s 91 million, a rise of 203 percent resulting in a record year for LTE phone vendors. Companies that stand to benefit the most include Apple, Samsung, and LG, with the iPhone 5 …

Planning to buy a 7-inch tablet? A new report from the folks at FixYa reveals some of the top issues with today’s crop of small-size tablets. Apple’s iPad Mini New to the 7-inch tablet arena, the iPad Mini didn’t trigger much in the way of specific problems reported by its users. Rather, people were more unhappy about what the device …

Google’s Nexus 4 has been out of stock since shortly after it went on sale last month, and now one company executive is pinning the blame on the phone’s supplier. Addressing a barrage of questions about the Nexus 4 via Google+, the company’s managing director for the U.K. and Ireland, Dan Cobley, served up an apology and an explanation. “Dear …

Research In Motion’s upcoming BlackBerry 10 is being eyed by one government agency that had already planned to switch to iPhones. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency will take a look at BB10 starting in January. The agency plans to launch a pilot program to test BlackBerry 10 devices and the BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 to see if …

Android 4.1, aka Jelly Bean, is now spilling out for AT&T customers with Samsung Galaxy S3 phones. As of today, AT&T subscribers can update their phones using Samsung’s Kies software. This method requires users to download the new Android flavor onto their computers and then apply the update to their phones through a sync. Users can update their phones by …

TxtN trns 20 2day. Hw willya celebr8? The so-called father of SMS commemorated the occasion via a rare interview that appropriately enough was conducted via text messages. Chatting with the BBC yesterday, Matti Makkonen took credit for conceiving and fleshing out SMS, or short message service. But he lived up to his title as its “reluctant father” by making it …

RIM’s stock climbed today in reaction to some rare positive news. Goldman Sachs analyst Simona Jankowski increased her rating on RIM stock to “Buy” from “Neutral” today after saying that there’s a “30 percent chance” the company’s BlackBerry 10 smartphones will be successful, the Associated Press reported. A one-in-three chance isn’t all that much to cheer about, but Jankowski’s opinion …

Nokia has announced two new phones designed for budget-conscious and socially-networked users, although they won’t be available in the United States. Unveiled today, the Asha 205 and 206 feature phones each sell for $62. They also offer quick access to Facebook and the ability to share photos and files with users of any other mobile phone. Both phones are slated …

Samsung should enjoy a profitable quarter if one analyst’s smartphone projections are on the money. The company is expected to ship 61.5 million smartphones in the fourth quarter, said UBS analyst Nicolas Gaudois, as reported by the Yonhap News agency. That number would prove a 5 percent gain over the 58 million estimated shipments for the third quarter. And the …