Samsung said this week it has shipped more than 1 million Galaxy S smartphones in the U.S., roughly six weeks after they were put on sale along side the iPhone 4 at AT&T and to T-Mobile subscribers.

Though they aren't iPhone 4 or iPad uptake numbers, sales of Samsung's Android-based phone does give the Android camp a hot-selling model to go head-to-head against Apple, and Research in Motion, which has seen lackluster sales of its new BlackBerry Torch, the first model sporting the new BlackBerry OS 6. Android's momentum has been well documented, most recently by Gartner when it reported that smartphone makers had shipped 11.2 million Android-based devices in the second quarter, or 17.2 percent of the worldwide market, up from a mere 1.8 percent in the second quarter of 2009. Yet much of Android's success has been attributed to the fact that there are dozens of makers and models of Android phones, offered by all the major wireless carriers, while the iPhone remains exclusively on AT&T in the U.S. and RIM is the sole supplier of the Blackberry.

AT&T will begin selling another Google Android-powered phone on Aug. 15, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 ($150 with a 2-year contract) to round out its smartphone lineup. But even with it's impressive specs -- 4-inch screen, 8 MP camera, 8 GB onboard storage, 1 GHz chip -- it will likely be a distant third in AT&T's smartphone line-up behind the hot-selling iPhone 4 and the new RIM BlackBerry Torch, which is based on the new Blackberry OS 6 and goes on sale Aug. 12 exclusively from AT&T.

A new survey adds ammunition to Apple's claim that the media is far more worried about the iPhone 4's reception issues than its actual users are.

Thanks to the super-selling iPhone 4's signal-strength problems, terms like "death grip" and "Antennagate" dominated the headlines until Steve Jobs held a snarky press conference in which he extended an offer of free phone cases. But Jobs also rolled out some statistics that threw cold water on the idea that a large number of iPhone users are dissatisfied with its performance.

No matter how Steve Jobs asks people to hold their new iPhones, the antenna problems that have plagued Apple's latest smartphone just aren't fading away.

Throwing a little extra fuel on the fire that the media has been excitedly fanning since the iPhone 4 hit the market, Consumer Reports said in a blog Monday that it has tested the device. The magazine's conclusion? The reception problems are very real and it doesn't recommend purchasing the new iPhone.

Sprint Nextel can't keep its EVO 4G smartphone in stock in some places, the company's chief executive, Dan Hesse, said on Tuesday, citing "better-than-expected demand," rather than the rumored component shortages. 

"The device is more popular than we or HTC could foresee," he told reporters, according to Reuters, after his keynote presentation at a Forrester Customer Experience conference. The EVO 4G, made by HTC, is Sprint's first WiMax-compatible phone and has been selling briskly since it's launch on June 4, though not as briskly as Sprint first announced. The carrier had to backtrack on it initial public  announcement that it had sold three times the number of EVOs than its two best-selling phones – the Samsung Instinct and Palm Pre – combined over their first three days of availability.

Yesterday Hesse specifically said he didn't think lack of key components was the issue, even though the screen of the EVO is made by Samsung, which is supplying it's own touch-screen Galaxy S smartphone to all four national wireless carriers, including Sprint. Is there really a difference between a parts shortage and too-strong demand for a device? Either way, would-be buyers can't get their hands on it, and have more time to consider other options, like the new iPhone 4, which Apple was able to supply in first-day volume nearing 2 million.

A choice of wireless networks and access to high-speed 4G connections top the wish list of features missing from the iPhone 4, according to a new study of smartphone users and would-be buyers.

The online survey of more than 4,000 adults across the US, UK and Canada conducted by Canadian research firm Vision Critical found that nearly four out of 10 current or would-be smartphone users in the US have these features at the top of their wish list.