How come you did not report the number of Android sales maybe it takes away from the Trounce title 10.6 million to 8.7 which does not include Iphone4 which sold 3 million in the first week alone.

Which leading smartphone supplier with one year refreshes had it's prototype phone leaked 3 months early by some golddigger blogging company?

All things change.
Personally I wasn't tempted by a smartphone of any flavour before the iPhone came out. They were too expensive.

The iPhone broke the ground and made smartphones accessable. It wasn't cheap but it was accessable.

Now HTC, are huge in their own right, Motorola are bouncing back, Samsung are making useful machines again.

Specs per pound (or dollar if you like) have increased massively, camera quality, media memory, ram, processor speed, flexibility, screen quality, functionality.

Which phone or OS you choose is a personal preference (alphabetic order, no preference implied):
Android with the choice of countless (well many) handsets.
Apple with the choice of few handsets.
RIM.... never used a blackberry.
Symbian, big user base but anonymous and un-sexy.
Windows, with free course psychiatric counselling.

Thing is, all these machines are phenominally powerful for phones.
They are more like a PSP thses days. They are mostly intuitive to use, when did you last see a user manual?

The designs across the board are attractive. (it all depends who is looking, eye of the beholder and all that)

The differences are in philosophies,
Android - open
Apple - closed
The remainder I have no idea...

I would go with Android IF it was closed Apple style, I like the look of the phones and the OS. That it is as open as it is and that the device can connect to a service that will charge me for connecting to it deters me from using Android.
Who do I blame for viruses?

Apple, closed... reportedly vetted applications, I should feel confident with them... but I don't.

The rest... no bad reports.. yet, or that I can remember.

The OS writers MUST take responsibility for holes in their products. Their employers MUST realise that their wares are being targetted and allow the resources for the code to be maintained. This is a necessity across the whole ecosystem.

On x86 and x86 64 computers, MS, Linux etc provide updates regularly to patch holes. This is needed on phones too...

I disagree that Microsoft is too late. they are late to the game with Apple and Google but the real switch to smartphones is only just beginning (see nokia as most sales, I wouldnt think most handsets they sell are smart phones) and they have a fresh OS while some people will tire of the iOS (as it hasn't changed its looks in 4 years). or Android if it also hasnt changed.

I wouldnt count Microsoft out. I expect the smartphone sales to go up at least 200% each year for the next 5 years. There is plenty of market left.

Yes. Android is astronomical.

And Nick Farrell must be laughing that Android is now beating iPhone.

Me, personally, well, I'm just happy to see Microsoft Windows Mobile, which used to have 25% of the market, drop to just 5% of the market.

Microsoft is the big loser of mobile. And I have a little chuckle to myself. Serves them right for all those decades of being the bully and thug.

Now Microsoft has missed out on the next era of computing :)