Android is by far the most popular smartphone platform on the planet, according to data by the IDC.

You can't really call it a smartphone battle royale when the only armies on the battlefield are Android and iOS. Google's open source platform closed out 2012 with a 70.1 percent share of the global smartphone market by way of 159.8 million handset shipments, making it by far the most popular platform. Next in line is iOS (iPhone), a distant second with 47.8 million iPhone sales to claim a 21 percent share of the market. Together, the two platforms accounted for just over 9 out of every 10 smartphones sold last year.

Microsoft is reportedly in the process of porting its Office productivity suite over to iOS and Android devices. This isn't the first we've heard of Office Mobile, nor has Microsoft officially confirmed the news, but screenshots and inside information have all but tipped the release as imminent. It will ship first to iOS and then Android, starting in early 2013, perhaps as early as February.

Imagine, if you will, a world in which blind loyalty trumps common sense and critical thinking, where the power of marketing and the corporate hype machine are so strong that reasonably intelligent consumers are reduced to social status seeking nitwits on a late night television talk show. Sadly, you don't have to imagine such a place. It already exists, as Jimmy Kimmel proved when his camera crew took to the streets of Los Angeles and handed people an iPhone 4S, and then asking them what they thought of the new iPhone 5 they where holding.

Apple on Wednesday unveiled the iPhone 5, and though it boasts a handful of respectable upgrades over the iPhone 4S -- bigger display panel, faster processor, thinner and lighter design, 4G LTE connectivity, an improved camera -- few would claim with a straight face that it's the end-all-be-all of smartphone design. But it is an Apple device, and inevitably, it's going to sell well. So well, in fact, that at least one analyst believes it will become the best selling electronic gadget to date.