So there’s a report this week that the Samsung Galaxy S II, a smartphone powered by the Android OS, has sold some 10 million copies within the span of five months. This is being heralded as a great success, though you never know whether Samsung is reporting shipments or sales.

To put this in perspective, since the start of the April quarter, up until the end of June, Apple sold 20.34 million iPhones. There’s no indication how well it fared during the current quarter, what with all that publicity about a new version arriving real soon now. But if sales kept up at a good clip, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear Apple report another 15 to 20 million units sold when the results are in.

Even at the low end of that figure, with 35 million iPhones sold in roughly the same period that Samsung moved 10 million of their most popular mobile gadget, Apple is certainly doing quite well. Sure, there are more Android devices out there if you count all the models and manufacturers, but Apple is selling just one current model, and a version of the previous model with reduced storage. That same lineup has been around since the summer of 2010, whereas Android phones are updated every few months.

Indeed, I wonder how many of you can pinpoint the actual changes between the original Samsung Galaxy S and the Samsung Galaxy S II. But the main differences appear to be a speedier processor, and an increase of the camera’s resolution from five megapixels to eight megapixels. In passing, these seem to be the sort of changes that are expected in the next iPhone.

But the real problem in Android land is that so many companies have so many similar models that you will likely find it difficult to tell one from the other. I suppose you can see which product gets the best reviews on the day you’re placing your order, and go with that, hoping that its replacement won’t arrive a few days later without much warning. Well, that could happen unless you pay really close attention to the technology blogs that focus on Android products.

At the same, the biggest problem facing Android handset makers is customer retention. It’s not just moving from one Android smartphone from one maker to an Android smartphone from another maker when your contract is up. It’s all about whether the customer will dump the platform and go for an iPhone. As reported recently, Apple can manage an 89% retention rate according to a customer survey. Most rival smartphone makers are lucky to get a third of that, and a healthy number of customers are looking to just leave Android-land. The only hope is that they’ll sign up so many new customers, that losing loads of existing customers won’t be such a big deal.

Now when Apple releases the next iPhone — and reports indicate that the upgrade will be announced at a media event next week — it is quite likely that the existing iPhone 4 will be reduced to 8GB storage capacity and sold for a pittance with a two-year contact. Some suggest an alternate low-cost model, the iPhone 4s. The reason is that Apple has made it clear that it’s not just going after as many wireless carriers as possible, but it wants to get into the prepaid market. That’s where people buy the phone upfront, and pay for their month’s service in advance. There are no carrier commitments, and they can just as well jump to a competing carrier that offers a compatible network if that’s what they want. Or just disconnect the thing for a few months to save some hard-earned cash.

Of course, when it comes to Apple, nothing is certain until the official announcement. We can speculate all we want, and even quote rumors that purportedly describe actual iPhone 5 cases, production schedules and even the quantities ordered. But only a portion of those reports are ever confirmed, and you don’t know whether that confirmation comes from a lucky but informed guess, or actual inside information from an Apple partner. But you have to wonder what how Apple would regard one of those suppliers if they broke the company’s iron-clad confidentiality agreement. That is, unless those leaks are carefully timed to gin up demand for the new product.

In the meantime, Apple and Samsung continue to trade lawsuits, and the action has spread to various parts of the world. Apple has already obtained a few victories that are slowing the release of a new Samsung Galaxy tablet, but until final verdicts are granted in Apple’s favor, it may just be a delaying action and nothing more. But even a delay can hurt the chances of the iPad rival, considering that the chances for success are extremely low to begin with.

Yes, I’m glad to hear that Samsung has built a successful smartphone, and I hope that customers who are stuck with two-year contracts are going to be satisfied with them. But it would be interesting to see if any surveys are conducted to indicate just how many people will actually break their contracts that include Android OS handsets after the next iPhone arrives.

Over the past week, both the tech and mainstream media have carried a number of reports about a rumored Apple media event, supposedly taking place October 4th, where the next iPhone will be launched. This speculation has been buttressed by still other reports, that Apple employees won’t be allowed to take vacations the following week.

If true, it would mean that the press event would occur a week ahead of the actual release of the products, to give customers a chance, I suppose, to place online preorders. Certainly too lengthy a wait for iPhone 5 gratification might wreck sales of the current model, so Apple is running a tight schedule.

Still other rumors suggest that iOS 5, along with the iCloud debut, are set for October 10th, with the actual hardware release coming a few days later. This will give time for Apple’s servers to sustain the high initial demand for the new software update, while creating the usual weekend media splash for the iPhone’s on sale events.

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A key element of making a new product a success is customer retention. If someone buys the product once, you hope that they’ll consider buying a newer version when the time comes. So even if you succeed in converting lots of new customers, if they go elsewhere next time, a company’s chances for long-term success are severely diminished, unless they attracted lots and lots of new customers to replace the ones who’ve departed.

Now the common meme played out in the media is that the Android OS must remain on top because it is growing faster than the iOS. Certainly the fact that there are a number of Android OS licensees shipping regular updates to their hardware would, by sheer force of numbers, dictate a better chance to sell more product.

But a recent survey of smartphone owners from UBS Investment Research, as quoted in AppleInsider, paints a troubling picture not just for the Android OS, but RIM and the BlackBerry as well. According to the survey, conducted this past August, the iPhone has an 89% retention rate. In the scheme of things, forgetting how the rest of the crowd is doing, that’s a pretty high number. Yes, there have been one or two tech pundits boasting how they dumped their iPhones for Android gear, but clearly they are few and far between.

The survey reports that the next highest retention rate belongs to HTC, with just 39%. Samsung, currently under siege with ongoing intellectual property infringement complaints from Apple, gets just 28%. Motorola, destined to become Google’s hardware arm and obviously its preferred Android maker, is stuck with 25%. As far as troubled RIM is concerned, their retention rate has dropped from 62% to 33% in the last 18 months.

Now to be fair to the Android OS licensees, a survey question as to whether customers would stick with Google’s mobile platform listed 55% as saying yes. On the other hand, with such a poor level of support for the hardware that runs Android, you have to think that these results are anomalous. If customers like the OS, why would they reject the hardware? Do they believe that somehow Android OS would fare better if the handset makers could produce better gear?

According to the AppleInsider report, the survey involved 515 customers with a focus on what they called “international high-end consumers.” Now these are the ones that mobile carriers would likely cherish, because they would probably have fatter contracts and thus provide more revenue.

Indeed, recent comments from Sprint CEO Dan Hesse, the very person featured in that company’s recent TV ads, has already admitted the company’s financial guidance is being hurt because they do not yet offer the iPhone. I say “yet,” because there are published reports that there will be a Sprint version when the next iPhone is introduced, perhaps at that rumored October 4th media event. It’s not at all certain where T-Mobile stands, but perhaps in limbo until the issues over that proposed merger with AT&T are resolved. In the end, if the Department of Justice’s lawsuit is upheld, that deal will be off. So if T-Mobile is consigned to independence for the foreseeable future, it might make sense for Apple to build a slightly revised GSM version for that system. The difference would involve T-Mobile’s 3G network frequencies, which are different than the ones supported by AT&T.

In any case, the UBS report also predicts Apple’s stock price will rise to $510, which seems perfectly sensible in light of reports that sales of iPhones, iPads, and even Macs, are remaining quite high. Perhaps we’ll know more if that media event takes place, because Apple will often reveal especially favorable sales results at the start of such presentations, although the quarterly financials, to be released later in October, will be where more details will be offered.

In the meantime, anticipation continues to rise over the form of the next iPhone. Some are going all out and talking about an iPhone 5, with a substantially revised case to house the higher-performing internal workings. Another talks of an iPhone 4s, which is basically a refresh that incorporates the new hardware, but is otherwise unchanged except, perhaps, for some revisions in the antenna layout to reduce the so-called “death grip” effect.

Then again, an iPhone 4s may simply be a second model, a slight revision to the iPhone 4, one to be sold at a lower price and replace the iPhone 3GS at the entry-level. An iPhone 4s might also be more suitable for so-called prepaid customers and others who buy their mobile handsets at full price up front. A roughly $600 list price may be daunting, but something in the $200 to $300 range may be considered almost affordable if there’s no two-year contract requirement.

You might also notice that, with all the publicity about the next iPhone, and even perhaps the iPad 3, even if it’s not expected until next year, how you read few reports anticipating any greatness from Android OS handset makers, RIM or those building Windows Phone 7 gear. But that’s in keeping with the UBS survey, which demonstrates that customers love their iPhones, but don’t much care about the rest.

Some Mac users have spread the idea that OS X Lion is Apple’s equivalent of Windows Vista? Why? Well, because some of the new iOS-inspired features are ill-thought, poorly implemented, and destined to make your user experience less empowering, to put it mildly. And did I tell you that Lion may be crashing a little too much?

While I understand change may often be hard to take, what Lion offers shouldn’t rise to the level of unbearable. And it’s certainly not a situation that’s comparable to Windows Vista.

As you recall, Vista was years late, critical features were dropped during the development process, it was bloated, slow, and there was a serious lack of peripheral drivers for the initial release. While many consumers tolerated Vista when they bought new PCs with the OS preloaded, businesses simply downgraded to XP. Indeed, there are still many millions of PCs out there that haven’t even been upgraded to Windows 7.

To be fair to Microsoft, Vista got better over time. Windows 7 basically takes the guts of Vista and fixes the worst ills. For Windows, it’s pretty good, and it’s been successful. Windows 8 is another matter entirely, but it won’t be out until 2012 at the earliest, although you can play with the public beta now if you want.

Lion has serious changes, all right, but the key visual alterations are easy to undo. You don’t like reverse scrolling, no problem. In the Mouse preference panel, there’s an option, labeled “Move content in the direction of finger movement when scrolling or navigating” that can be unchecked. Scrolling behavior is now back to normal, or what was regarded as normal before the first iPhone arrived.

If you don’t like scroll bars that only show themselves when you want to scroll, and there’s additional content to be seen in a document window, you can turn that feature off in the General preference panel. The default setting, to show the scroll bars “Automatically based on input device,” will hide them when scrolling on a Magic Mouse, Magic Trackpad, or portable Mac’s trackpad. With third party mice, the scroll bars will generally remain visible. Or just use “Always,” which restores traditional Mac OS functionality.

But that didn’t stop someone, quoted in a blog, from dumping Lion because the new behaviors were intolerable. Rather than check System Preferences to see what could be altered, the person in question simply gave up. I suspect some other Lion users were equally quick to revert to Snow Leopard, though it’s not a casual process, since you basically have to rebuild your hard drive or restore from a backup.

Other Lion features that are getting ragged on include the new look for Mail, which, with its side by side panes, and message previews, more or less mirrors the way it’s done on the iPad. While I’m not enamored of another feature, Conversation, which lets you conveniently examine all your email exchanges with someone in a single window, I’ve left the others intact. Besides, most of the changes can be quickly undone in Mail’s preferences.

Granted, some of the other notable Lion features, such as Auto Save, are application dependent and cannot be turned off if an app supports them, but it’s not as if most of you will find the new setup that much less convenient. Yes, there will be no Save As feature, forcing you to engage in a two-step process, beginning with Duplicate and ending with Save to make another copy of a document with a new name. But it’s not as if this should be a potential deal breaker.

Indeed, once most Mac apps support Lion’s new features, you shouldn’t have to fret over losing key content because you forgot to save and your Mac crashed, or you had a power outage or other catastrophe. Indeed, Apple should have added an Auto Save capability years ago. My real concern is why they couldn’t devise a workable method to make it work automatically across all or most apps (Lion savvy or not), in the fashion of third-party utilities. We can debate the logic behind Auto Save till the end of time. In the end, if it proves less successful with Mac users, Apple will probably consider changes for a Lion revision, or perhaps Mac OS 10.8.

There are also some features that need work, such as how a second or third display is supported when you engage full screen mode in a document. Right now, you just get an empty linen background on your other screens, but this seems to be something that Apple could address. Why can’t you have, say, three monitors with separate full screen documents?

Another raging complaint about Lion is stability. Some have encountered crashes from time to time. Indeed, the recent 10.7.1 update was, in part, meant to improve stability. But having a Mac OS release that’s a tad shaky around the edges is nothing new for Apple. As always, within a few weeks, the first maintenance update arrives to repair the worst problems. It may take one or more additional updates before things settle down for the hyper-critical, and Lion is no different.

Unlike Windows Vista, OS X Lion seems no slower, for the most part, when compared to its predecessor. It’s not as if Apple piled on the features without regard for performance. In the end, however, for those who haven’t upgraded to Lion, read the reviews, read the complaints, and decide for yourself which way to go. But a backup is essential whether you decide to keep Lion or not.