Hasta La Gadget!

Nokia’s slice of the smartphone market in the U.S. is virtually non-existent, although it’s still the number one cell phone vendor worldwide. However, that could change soon. A new study from Generator Research predicts that Apple’s share of the smartphone market could exceed Nokia’s sometime within the next four years, according to Electronista.

In fact, the research firm sees the market virtually “reversing itself” by then. It predicts that Nokia could fall from 40 to 20 percent share as the iPhone increases to 33 percent by that point–with Apple shipping 77 million iPhones in 2011 alone.

Generator cites the usual reasons for Apple’s success here, basically saying it’s a combination of the iPhone itself and Apple’s App Store, according to the report. That $99 iPhone 3G can’t hurt either. Meanwhile, Nokia seems unable to get U.S. carriers to pick up their devices here in the U.S., aside from the occasional E62 or E71x on AT&T, and steadfastly refuses to push into the CDMA side (read: Verizon and Sprint).

AT&T has a new message for its copper-wire customers: Keep your landline, or put your loved ones in peril. At least, that seems to be the idea behind a new Home Base campaign, which lists the reasons why it believes having a home phone is important, according to GigaOm.

Among the reasons given: you’ll always have a phone even when the power goes out, 911 responders will know your exact location if you have an emergency, you can fax from it, and it doesn’t drop calls.

In and of itself, this isn’t so bad. But the company’s picture of an ambulance racing to the scene of an emergency is a little over the top. The fact that paying for a landline means more revenue for AT&T? Irrelevant. Remember, if you disconnect it and you have a family, it means You Are a Bad Person.

Also, AT&T can’t count (see above).

Lightspeed Research has released the results of a multi-nation study about cell phone use–and some of them are strange. For example, 13 percent of U.S. subscribers don’t make calls, while 52 percent make at least one call per day. 35 percent never send text messages, but that’s at least somewhat understandable.

You have to wonder what those 13 percent are doing with their cell phones. Do they use them as paperweights? Maybe just play Snake on them? I assume some of that group have cell phones as emergency-only devices, but that’s a pretty large percentage.

The study also reported that women send more text messages than men, with 29 percent compared to 25 percent sending at least one text per day, whereas men and women make the same percentage of voice calls each day. In addition, mobile Web browsing is the most popular daily activity (at 14 percent), while taking photos is the most popular weekly mobile pastime (at 37 percent).

Unlocked phones are always a tough sell in the U.S. due to the high up-front pricing, despite all of their benefits. Nonetheless, Palm is doing its part to help by slashing the price of the unlocked Palm Treo Pro from $549 to $399, Brighthand reports.

That move could help spur sales for enterprise users, as well as global travelers that like to switch out SIM cards overseas and avoid paying horrendous roaming charges to AT&T or T-Mobile.

The Treo Pro is a solid smartphone even in unlocked form, as I found in my PCMag.com review. It’s quad-band EDGE and tri-band UMTS/HSDPA device with a 400 MHz CPU, a reasonably comfortable keyboard, and some subtle but significant UI enhancements on top of Windows Mobile.

Sprint’s subsidized version of the Treo Pro remains at $200 with a two-year contract–in that case, it’s a tough sell against the stellar Palm Pre.

For more on Palm, Apple, Research in Motion, and other top handset vendors, be sure to visit Smart Device Central, PCMag.com’s dedicated site for smartphones and other mobile technologies.

The Apple iPhone 3GS and the Palm Pre may be running away with the buzz right now, but BlackBerry maker Research in Motion still leads in sales–by a long shot.