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The iPhone's dominance of the smartphone market is under serious threat for the first time. Android is gaining ground, open Symbian is looming, and alternative operating systems are increasingly gaining features that users really want - even Windows Phone 7 will have Adobe Flash, we learn; while Apple may have to allow Opera Mini into its App Store, despite the competition with Safari, to avoid being disadvantaged against Android (which just got the popular mobile browser). Now the latest figures from digital metrics firm comScore show the iPhone stagnating in terms of mobile internet use in the US, Apple's major heartland of support.

Apple's share of the US smartphone market was flat at 25.1%, in contrast to a leap of almost two percentage points by RIM, to extend its lead to a huge 43%. This is likely to be whittled down over coming quarters as Android smartphones gain ground - they grew by 4.3% to get 7.1% in Q4 and some analysts expect them to account for 20% of the installed base, and as much as half of new smartphone sales, by year end. Motorola and HTC are the leading Android vendors in the US. Nokia is also expected to make more US impact this year. Windows Mobile had 15.7% of the smartphone segment, and Palm had 5.7%.

As mobile web and open OS capabilities, associated with high end phones, move into the mass market, the vendor map is set to shift. In particular, in the US, Android has made a more aggressive move into the midmarket than iPhone or BlackBerry, the smartphone leaders in north America.

For phones as a whole, ComScore's Q4 survey of more than 30,000 consumers showed that US mobile subscribers age 13 or over were using Motorola phones more than any other brand. It had an estimated 23% market share of the active installed base, with its Android handsets the main contributor to growth, followed by LG on 21.7%, Samsung on 21.1%, Nokia on 9.1% and RIM on 7.8%.

Android may be putting the iPhone on the defensive, with Symbian4 in the wings to launch a possible pincer movement. But Apple will not sit still, and iPhone 4.0 should make its debut in June. Among the expected improvements that will make a real difference to its continuing competitiveness will be belated support for true multitasking.

Apple disappointed many by leaving multitasking out of iPhone 3.0, which also affects the new iPad. It offered push notifications to allow users to stay in touch with apps that were not actually running, but this was very much a compromise. True background processing will appear in release 4.0 of the operating system, says AppleInsider, quoting company sources.

The blog says that the iPhone is already capable of multitasking, but very few applications are allowed to use the capability - only Apple's own products, and one it developed for sports vendor Nike. Apple cites security risks, arguing that malware could run in the background without the user's knowledge. There are also issues of battery life and the need for increased hardware firepower in the phone, both of which the vendor says will be addressed in the next iPhone, so that iPhone 4.0 will at last allow third party developers to run their apps in the background. It is likely, then, that the new handset will be designed with multitasking in mind, which could mean a new processor (perhaps Apple's own A4, as in the iPad).

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