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Apple's new mobile operating system iOS 5 could be the magic tonic the technology giant needs to help it beat Google Ice Cream Sandwich - the new "ambitious" Android OS.
Apple's iPhone, which has set the benchmark in the smartphone industry, is in danger of losing out to Android smartphones in terms of popularity. According to a comScore report, Google Android's US market share surged to 36.4 percent while Apple's iPhone, which runs on iOS, dropped down to second place with 26 percent market share. iPhone was barely ahead of RIM's BlackBerry (25.7 percent).
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The report noted that Android's market share grew from 26 percent in November 2010 to 31.2 percent in January 2011 and to 36.4 percent by the end of June 2011.
At the current rate, Android looks good enough to capture almost 50 percent of the U.S. smartphone market by the end of 2011.
In terms of mobile phone sales in the U.S., Apple ranked No.4 (8.3 percent) behind Android smartphone makers like Samsung (24.5 percent), LG (21 percent) and Motorola (15.6 percent).
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A Nielsen survey also reveals that Android users download more apps on average than iPhone users despite Apple's App Store being more than twice bigger than Android Market Place.
If Apple thought that things looked bad enough, it was wrong. Last month, Google rubbed salt to Apple's wounds by unveiling the latest version of Android (codename Ice Cream Sandwich) at its annual I/O 2011 event.
And unlike previous versions, the latest version of Android is being billed as the most pivotal update yet in the mobile OS battle between Google and Apple.
Why? Because Ice Cream Sandwich has been designed to integrate the smartphone and tablet variants of Android into one and elevate it to the same playing level as iOS which runs iPhone as well as iPad.
Google said the latest Android is its "most ambitious release to date" as it will combine Android 2.3 (the latest Android OS for smartphones aka Gingerbread) with Android 3.0 (Google's first tablet-specific variant of Android aka Honeycomb).
A unified platform ("one OS that runs everywhere") will benefit developers, who till now were forced to develop applications (apps) for the fragmented Android market.
With one common platform, like Apple's proprietary iOS, the developers can now develop apps that will be compatible across all Android-based devices, be they smartphones or tablets.
Consequently, the gap between Apple App Store and Android Market Place will also narrow.
However, Apple has a few tricks up its sleeves too. Nearly a month after Google I/O event ended, Apple announced in its annual worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) that iOS 5, the latest version of its mobile OS, was a "major" and "incredible" release for developers and customers alike.
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