Although Apple’s iPhone remains one of the most popular and sought-after devices on the market, the news earlier this month of Samsung taking its crown as the number one smartphone manufacturer will have sent alarm bells ringing. To make matters worse, it has now been revealed that Microsoft’s Windows Phone has overtaken the fruit company’s iPhone in terms of market share in China – the largest market in the world.

Those playing games on mobile devices are invariably referred to as “casual gamers”, despite the quality of gameplay and graphics knocking on the door of the hardcore titles we know and love from the consoles. If research gathered by mobile game developer MocoSpace is anything to go by, casual is certainly an apt description of today’s mobile gamers, with a third playing titles while they ought to be working hard in class!

Nokia was once the untouchably dominant force within the mobile industry, but its Symbian OS was gradually eclipsed by iOS and Android, leaving the Finnish outfit with no choice but to hop on the back of Redmond-based Microsoft and its fledgling Windows Phone OS. In all fairness to Nokia, it has gone pretty gung-ho hitherto, putting much effort into the flagship Lumia series which has in turn yielded an army of fans – most notably Apple’s co-founder Steve Wozniak.

If you are a fan of cricket and happen to own a Windows Phone device, then you are in luck today, for a new app has been released that promises to be right up your street.

In what can only be described as a highly comical turn of events, Apple’s much lauded Siri has offered Nokia something of a shot in the arm by decreeing its latest Windows Phone 7 smartphone to be the best available.

With Samsung having only just announced the juicy details of its Samsung Galaxy S III, it arguably takes pride of place as the poster child of Android (sorry, HTC One X), thus instantly drawing comparisons with the flagship devices of the two other major mobile ecosystems.

If you happen to be one of the few people who own a Windows Phone device, and are longing to be whisked back to 2010, then the release of the Talking Tom Cat app for Microsoft’s mobile OS is probably just the news you have been waiting for. If however, you are familiar with the same app from iOS and Android, and quickly got bored of the loveably little kitty, then this will hardly be an earth shattering experience whatsoever.

Like the introduction of iPhone OS back in 2007, the early versions of Windows Phone are strangely bereft of folders. Although iOS 4 finally allowed iDevice users to file their apps away in an orderly fashion, there doesn’t appear to be such implementation in sight from the Redmond-based software maker, leaving those WP users who can find enough apps to file away in the first place, without the capacity to keep things organized.

Although Windows Phone received a much-welcome boost from Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, it’s fair to say, in terms of smartphone news, Microsoft’s mobile platform doesn’t really get in amongst the exciting end of the scale. In a refreshing turn up for the books, however, one particular Windows Phone enthusiast has modded his Nokia Lumia 800 to enable wireless charging.

The story that Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak was planning to take his place in-line and buy a Nokia Lumia 900 was a great one for headline writers. What better than a co-founder of the company behind the iPhone queuing up to buy one of the competition? Well, how about the man himself waxing lyrical about said competition?

Although Nokia have been going through a rather difficult spell in recent years, they have still been managing to cling on to the top spot when it comes to global sales of cellphones – until now. According to new research conducted by a number of analytics firms, Samsung have ousted Nokia from the top of the leader board.

Having seen just how quickly an app like Instagram can become a billion dollar success story, it figures other developers would want to try their hand at building competitive image-sharing apps.

All of the big guns are looking to get in on the cloud computing act, and Microsoft is no exception with its SkyDrive service. As per the MSDN blog, much work has gone into improving SkyDrive over the course of the last couple of months, and now, a preview of the SkyDrive desktop client has been released, along with a plethora of improvements to existing services.

Benchmarks are an important factor in a device’s reputation. As soon as a new gadget hits the market, tech enthusiasts are keen to ascertain how much faster and more powerful it performs when compared with similar devices.

Dropbox, and similar services such as iCloud, offer users of mobile devices a great safety net through which to backup and restore, sync, share and access files from anywhere, and at any time.

Given that Windows Phone is still in relative infancy, the activity regarding customization and modding devices running Microsoft’s mobile OS has yet to really get out of first gear. The guys over at XDA Developers have once again delivered a treat to mobile enthusiasts, though, with the first custom ROM for both the Lumia 800 and 710.

Samsung’s Taiwanese branch has confirmed that it will begin retailing Windows Phone 8 smartphones as soon as October. Responding to the questions of reporters, Samsung Taiwan has noted that it would not be introducing Windows Phone 7 (Mango) in Taiwan, instead looking towards the introduction of Windows Phone 8 (Apollo) handsets this October.

There’s a lot of talk right now about Nokia and its Windows Phone 7 handsets. Specifically, it is the newly released and much hyped Lumia 900 which is seeing most of the headlines and clicks right now.

The general consensus is that the Windows Phone 7.x operating system is a winner with the beautiful Metro styling, but that doesn’t mean that it is going to keep everyone happy all of the time. One thing we know for sure is that mobile smartphone users have unique tastes, meaning that one mans trash is most definitely another mans treasure.

Facial manipulation apps have been quite popular over the past few years, and can turn even the most boring mugshot into a funny and entertaining creation.