When I learned that Nokia would be teaming up with Microsoft for the next generation of Windows Phones, I was very excited. Nokia phones have a long-standing reputation for high quality, durability, and solid specs, but they've been held back by a stale operating system, Symbian. Enter the Nokia Lumia 710 for T-Mobile ($US50 with a new two-year contract; price as of January 5, 2012), the Finnish handset maker's first Windows Phone in the US.

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Google's Android mobile platform may be based on the open source Linux operating system, but the extent of its own openness has long been a topic of considerable debate.

iOS grew its share of the global mobile operating system market to 24.2 percent in November, further stretching its advantage over Android.

All new malware being written for mobile devices targets Android, according to a McAfee report on malware trends in Q3 2011.

Apple's iPhone has unseated the Research in Motion BlackBerry as the top smartphone used by mobile employees, according to an iPass survey of more than 2300 workers around the world.

Android's well-documented fragmentation issues apparently aren't deterring consumers from snatching up Android phones.

Spotify recently announced a new mobile application for Windows Phone 7 users, more than a year after the music streaming service first said it would bring its service to Microsoft's newest mobile OS. The new app, simply called Spotify and available now in the Windows Phone Marketplace, requires a Phone 7 device running version 7.5 (Mango) or higher and a premium Spotify account.

It's hard to remember now, but there was a time when Finland was at the center of the cell phone universe. As cell phones overtook pagers, then smartphones overtook cell phones, Nokia was the hottest company in the industry.

With so much chatter about tablets this year, you might think that the handheld, rectangular devices being unveiled represent a significant innovation. The reality is that so much of what we're seeing is not a whole lot different than what we saw in previous years; these products offer only a few new twists. But those new twists could make the difference between tablets' remaining a niche item and their finally busting out to the mass market in a meaningful way.

Unlike the iPhone and products based on Google's Android OS, Symbian's user interface hasn't been developed for smartphones with touchscreens. But that is about to change, said Lee Williams, executive director at the Symbian Foundation, who along with his colleagues gathered at the Symbian Exchange & Exposition on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The Palm Pre, iPhone, and Android browsers were designed specifically for touchscreen phones. In contrast, the S60 browser that Nokia's touchscreen phones use goes back to an older S60 interface that did not focus on touchscreen use. This fact may explain some of the S60 browser's lingering limitations.

Does the world need another smartphone operating system? Apple's iPhone OS is still booming; Google's Android is increasingly promising; and three longtime contenders--Microsoft's Windows Mobile, RIM's BlackBerry OS, and Symbian's S60--are undergoing serious renovation to keep up with the times.

The Palm Pre and the Apple iPhone 3G S are the smartphone standouts of 2009, but they're not the only news. Operating systems are receiving updates, new devices are debuting, and app stores are growing by the day. Here's what to look for from the six big operating systems in smartphones today.