BARCELONA — What a difference a year makes. Maybe.

Nokia was in dire straights this time last year. Having just announced a nearly universal reset of its business and betting its future on Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform, the company’s future was bleak but at least it had a new plan and operating system that could turn back the tide.

Today, Nokia continues to talk about its strategy and deep partnership with Microsoft, but only one of the two devices introduced here at Mobile World Congress are running on Microsoft’s OS. The other device is the 808 PureView, which features a hard-to-fathom 41-megapixel sensor, Carl Zeiss optics and Nokia’s pixel over-sampling technology. The 808 PureView runs on the latest version of Symbian, a software with a future so narrow that Nokia dumped it (and 3,000 related employees) on Accenture last April. Read more

BARCELONA — Android is growing at “break-neck speed” with 850,000 new devices activated every day, Google’s mobile head Andy Rubin announced in a blog post today. The mobile operating system’s year-over-year growth is now at 250 percent, he added, surpassing 300 million total devices to date.

Today, more than a billion apps are downloaded every month, Rubin continued. And in the 54 weeks that have passed since last year’s Mobile World Congress, the number of apps in the Android Market have tripled to more than 450,000.

The first Android-powered device was released in late October 2008. Since then, more than 800 devices have been launched on the platform. Google’s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt will no doubt elaborate on this tremendous growth trajectory when he returns to the MWC stage tomorrow evening.

Google Nexus, the next flagship smartphone for Android drops next month. The Samsung device will also serve as the debut for Ice Cream Sandwich, or Android 4.0.

The updated operating system from Google features a refined user experience that mirrors many of the enhancements Google brought to its Honeycomb build for tablets. Ice Cream Sandwich also delivers improved multi-tasking, notifications, NFC support and a new People app that organizes your contacts and the photos and other content you share with them. Read more

Android is now powering more than 190 million devices. Google CEO and co-founder Larry Page calls the platform’s growth “mind boggling.”

Mobile is playing an increasingly important role in the company’s future, but until last week’s earnings call there was little sense of just how much it contributes to the company’s bottom line.

Mobile is now operating at an annual run rate above $2.5 billion, Page said, adding that revenue tied to the company’s mobile operations has grown two-and-a-half times in the last 12 months. Read more

Millions of BlackBerry users spanning at least four continents are without service for a third consecutive day. An untold number of customers, not all however, are unable to send messages, emails or browse the web in parts of North and South America, Africa, Middle East and Europe.

A little more than an hour ago, Research In Motion admitted that it’s still working to resolve the “service issue that many of our BlackBerry customers are experiencing.”

The early outages occurred Monday in Africa, Europe and the Middle East, but as of this morning they have reached the Americas — and they are ongoing. Read more

iPads generate more mobile traffic than all other iOS devices combined

Mobile devices comprised 6.8% of all online traffic in August 2011. Nearly two-thirds of that traffic came from mobile phones while tablets accounted for the remainder, according to a new report from comScore.

The number of U.S. subscribers consuming mobile media grew 19% in the past year to 116 million people. While the growth is noteworthy, it also highlights the large untapped market for mobile data that still exists. Read more

In the shadow of Steve Jobs’ death, Samsung and Google have cancelled the unveiling of their next jointly developed Android smartphone. Both companies were expected to reveal the Nexus Prime, the latest flagship Android device to carry the “Nexus” name on Tuesday. The device and Android’s latest software update, Ice Cream Sandwich, are now expected to debut later this month.

Though reminders for Tuesday’s event went out to press again yesterday — about 20 hours after news of Jobs’ death had spread — there appears to have since been a change of heart. Samsung originally cloaked the reason for the last-minute postponement in ambiguity, but later confirmed it was out of respect for Steve Jobs.

“We believe this is not the right time to announce a new product as the world expresses tribute to Steve Jobs’s passing,” the companies said in a statement. Read more

**As published in RCR Wireless News**

“Android’s really on a tear,” Larry Page said in his first earnings call as Google Inc. CEO today. Consider these numbers, which certainly contributed to the company’s 32% growth in revenue from the previous year to $9.03 billion.

More than 130 million Android devices have been activated to date and at least 550,000 are being activated every day now, which represents a current growth rate of 4.4% week over week. More than 250 million apps are available on Android Market and 6 billion downloads have been served so far. Overall, downloads have doubled from a few months ago. Read more

**As published in RCR Wireless News**

Google Inc.’s (GOOG) latest earnings were overshadowed by an executive shake-up at the highest level of the company.

Eric Schmidt is stepping down as CEO on April 4 to take on the title of executive chairman where he will focus on external deals, partnerships and government outreach.

Co-founder Larry Page will take over as CEO to lead product development and technology strategy while co-founder Sergey Brin will focus on strategic projects, particularly new products. Read more

**As published in RCR Wireless News**

Though the two companies increasingly find themselves competing in the same markets and industries, Google Inc. and Apple Inc. appear to be playing nice on at least one front: iOS applications.

Whereas previously Apple blocked some of the applications submitted by Google, more of those apps are now sailing through to safer landings on users iOS devices. This change not only highlights Google and Apple’s delayed reluctance to see eye to eye for the benefit of their users, but also Google’s continued desire to reach mobile users beyond its Android platform. Read more