The International Data Corporation’s (IDC) third quarter tablet sales figures are in and there’s a clear winner.  Who you ask? You guessed it – it’s Android!

According to the IDC, market leader Apple saw a decline in market share from 65.5% in 2Q12 to 50.4% in 3Q12, leaving most if not all of the remaining market share to Android.  Interestingly though, Apple’s share in the same quarter last year (i.e. 3Q11) was 59.7% or 11.1m units vs 14.0m units in 3Q12.

In the Android camp, Samsung led the way with massive gains across the board.  Samsung saw a 115.0% jump in market share from 2Q12, and an amazing 312.0% jump since 3Q11 to give it a 3Q12 market share …

Upset that Australia will be missing out on Amazon’s new Kindle Fire HD? Well, you don’t need to be too down any more. It turns out that an Australian retailer, ReaderShop, will be importing the Kindle Fire HDs to Australia in early October.

In a report to Australian Business Traveller, ReaderShop’s Leonardo Crespo said:

 They’ll be available between 8- 11 of October … we don’t know the prices yet. We’ll know around 3-5 October.

As the Amazon App Store is currently not available in Australia, it seems iffy about how useful these things will be. The Kindle Fire HDs block out Google services (such as Google Play) and have all app downloads and such run through the Amazon App …

Amazon has just announced their follow up to the incredibly popular Kindle Fire. The new Kindle Fire HD is coming in two form factors, 7-inch and 8.9-inch, as well as a WiFi only and LTE capable variants.

As Amazon’s tablets run off of Amazon’s App Store and not Google Play, it means that they can only be available in countries that support the App Store. Australia, of course, is not one of the lucky ones. Before you keep on reading you must be aware that the Kindle Fire HD is not coming to Australia, for now.

• 8.9-inch 1920×1200 (254ppi) display
• HD front-facing camera
• HDMI output
• Bluetooth connectivity
• Texas Instruments OMAP 4470 processor
• 4G LTE variant
• wo antennas,
• WiFi in

…

Do Amazon have a smartphone on the way? While there’s been speculation for quite a while now, The Verge is hearing some concrete evidence that the press will be getting a sneak peak tomorrow. That is, at Amazon’s event where they’re expected to be showing off the new Kindle Fire tablet(s) and a new eReader.

Details are a bit hazy at this point, but it looks like the phone will be powered by a similar OS to the Kindle Fire tablets. I’d guess that Amazon would keep either the Kindle or Fire name to get a product line on the move. Seeing as though the name Kindle is used for other, non-Android, devices I would guess the phone will be …

According to the Wall Street Journal, Amazon’s rumoured Android smartphone is already in its testing stage. The device, presumably to be a member of the Kindle family with a 4-5 inch screen, is not expected any time soon, according to “Amazon’s parts suppliers, who [obviously] declined to be named.” Production is expected to start sometime later this year or early 2013.

It’s also expected that the device will be sold at close to cost price, like the Kindle Fire, and closely integrated with the Amazon network. Android Authority are predicting that the device may be sold directly by Amazon similar to Google’s decision to sell the Nexus 7 (along with other devices) directly through the play store.

The likelihood of …