Apple is largest OEM, Android most popular mobile OS in the US

The latest US smartphone market stats for August are in, courtesy of market research firmcomScore. A total of 191.1 million people in the US own a smartphone in the three month period ending in August, resulting in a 77.1% mobile market penetration.

The analytic data shows that Apple is still the leading OEM in the US with 44.1% of the market, up 0.6 percent points from last month. It's followed by Samsung and LG with 27.4% and 9.1%, with the latter managing to grow its presence 0.9 percent points. Motorola and HTC are following with 4.7% and 3.4%, respectively.

As for smartphone platform market share, Android is still the top dog, despite a small fall from the previous three month period. Now, Android takes 51.7% of the market, while Apple is at 44.1% after a 0.6 percent point rise. Microsoft's mobile OS is down slightly and is at 2.9%.

comScore has also run an analysis on the top smartphone apps and Facebook is at the top, as it's installed on 3 out of 4 smartphones in the US. Next up is Facebook Messenger and YouTube at 59.8% and 59.5%.

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Coolpad unveils Rogue

Chinese smartphone vendor Coolpad has announced a new, ultra budget-friendly smartphone. Dubbed Rogue, the device is priced at $50, and will be available for purchase in the US starting September 30, both online and at T-Mobile stores.

Specs-wise, the handset is powered by a dual-core 1.1GHz Snapdragon processor, and sports a 4.0-inch WVGA display. It comes with 1GB RAM and 4GB internal memory, which is expandable up to 32GB.

In terms of camera, the Rogue features a 2MP rear unit and a VGA front shooter. It offers LTE support (2, 4, 12, AWS3 bands) and runs a customized version of Android 5.1 Lollipop OS.

"We are extremely excited that Coolpad can bring our 'Live Smart' motto of providing cool technology, easy-to-use interface, affordable prices, and attractive designs to T-Mobile customers," said Charlie Parke, VP of Coolpad Technologies.

The partnership with T-Mobile is the company's first with a tier-one mobile carrier in the US.

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Moto X Pure Edition arrives at Best Buy in white, black and bamboo

The Moto X Pure Edition is now available from Best Buy for in-store pickup. The retail chain started selling the unlocked smartphone this week in white, black or bamboo options.

You won’t get all the customization options that come when you order the new Moto X Pure Edition straight from Motorola. Using Moto Maker you can pick a variety of color combinations, along with a personalized engraving. But on the plus side, if you pick up the device from Best Buy you could be using it a lot sooner.

Best Buy is offering the Moto X Pure Edition starting at $399 (same as Motorola). That gets you 16GB of storage with the option to add more via microSD card. You’ll have to pay an extra $25 for a bamboo back panel though, and adding more built-in storage means a $50 price bump to 32GB as well.

Whichever way you buy it, the Moto X Pure Edition is a pretty awesome smartphone, packing powerful specs and excellent software at a very fair price. It comes equipped with a 5.7-inch Quad HD display, a Snapdragon 808 processor, 3GB of RAM, a 21-megapixel rear camera, a 5-megapixel front-facing shooter and a 3000mAh battery. It also runs a near stock version of Android with a handful of helpful tweaks and additions from Motorola.

If you need to get your hands on the latest from Motorola as soon as possible, hit the source link below to see if any nearby Best Buy stores are carrying the device.

Sony pushes Android 5.1.1 update to Xperia Z, ZL, ZR, and Tablet Z

Sony has started sending out a new software update for some of its older Xperia Z-series devices. The software in question is Android 5.1.1 Lollipop, still the latest stable version to come out of Google.

The devices for which the rollout has started today are the Xperia Z, Xperia ZL, Xperia ZR, and the Xperia Tablet Z in both Wi-Fi-only and LTE-enabled iterations.

Currently only certain variations of these models are receiving the update. For the Xperia Z we're talking about handsets with the model number C6602 and C6603, as well as the C6503 and C6506 Xperia ZL units, C5503-badged Xperia ZR, the SGP311 and SGP312 Wi-Fi-only Tablet Z, and the SGP321 Tablet Z with LTE.

Unfortunately it looks like the much-discussed Stagefright exploit has not been fully patched in this release, so we expect to see a further, smaller update coming in the future to address that.

Regardless of which of the aforementioned devices you install the update onto, after having applied it you'll be on build number 10.7.A.0.222.

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High-end Yu 5050 has specs detailed ahead of tomorrow's unveiling

As we told you a few days ago, Micromax-backed Indian smartphone maker Yu will hold an event tomorrow during which it's expected to reveal a new device. And it looks like most of this handset's specs have been leaked already.

First off, a Yu 5050 has been spotted entering India for testing purposes by a specialized website tracking imports into the subcontinent. This also helpfully tells us that the phone's screen size will be 5.2".

Next up, the same Yu 5050 has turned up in the databases of two different benchmarking apps for Android - GeekBench and AnTuTu. And thanks to this we find out that the handset will come with QHD resolution, a 21 MP rear camera, an 8 MP selfie snapper, 32GB of storage, 3 or 4GB of RAM, and Qualcomm's Snapdragon 810 SoC at the helm. It runs Android 5.1.1 Lollipop.

What's even more interesting is that the Yu 5050's price is rumored to be around $310 unlocked. That would make it cheaper than the OnePlus 2, for example, and it could end up being the cheapest phone powered by the Snapdragon 810 chipset. On the other hand, the two different RAM amounts seem to indicate we'll see two versions of the 5050, in which case the lower-end one is probably going to start at that price.

One thing to keep in mind is that such benchmark reports are not at all impossible to fake. Then again, we'll officially find out everything there is to know about this phone in less than 24 hours.

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Nexus 5 starts getting Android 5.1.1 update in India

The LG Nexus 5, which was released back in November 2013, has started receiving the Android 5.1.1 update in India. The over-the-air (OTA) update weighs in at around 24MB and carries a build number of LMY48B.

If you haven't received it yet, you can manually check for it by heading to Settings -> About -> System Updates on your device. For those who aren't already aware, the Android 5.1.1 update isn't a major one, as it is primarily aimed at fixing bugs and improving performance and stability.

This comes just a few days after the update started rolling out for the LG G Flex2 in Korea.

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Sprint joins Verizon in releasing Lollipop for the LG G2

People generally consider Verizon to be America's worst carrier when it comes to software updates (or rather, how fast it is in releasing them). However, for the LG G2 Verizon proved to be a lot quicker with the Lollipop release than Sprint.

Verizon's G2 units have been getting the tasty treat since last month, whereas Sprint is only now commencing its over-the-air rollout.

So if you own an LG G2 bought from Sprint, expect to see an update notification popping up soon - within the next few days or weeks, that is. The new release contains everything that's new in Android 5.0 (both from Google as well as LG), but also an "update to FM radio software".

After applying the update, you'll be on software version ZVG. The previous one was ZVE, released in October 2014.

As usual, if you're impatient and don't want to wait for the update notification, you can try to manually check by using the appropriate option in your phone's Settings menu.

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Google’s Android 5.1.1 Lollipop in works, may fix memory leak

Google has started seeding out the Android 5.1 Lollipop update to but many are still concerned with the reported memory leak issue that hasn't been fixed with it.

The good news is Android SDK manager pushes the new Android 5.1.1 Lollipop update as part of the SDK package. For now it nests under the development platform and also ensures a quick release to the devices running Android 5.1 for now.

Enthusiasts should be banking on this version to get the memory leak issue that drains battery and deteriorates performance fixed.

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