Analyst Gene Munster has found in Piper Jaffray data that iPhone users are much more loyal to their phone brand than Android and Blackberry users. InformationWeek reports that he estimates about 94% loyalty from iPhone owners when they go to buy their next phone, compared to about 47% loyalty in Android owners and 26% loyalty in BlackBerry owners. Of those surveyed, 42% of Android owners and 67% of BlackBerry owners plan on switching to iPhone with their next purchase.

Apple Inc has filed a lawsuit against Samsung Electronics Co Ltd in South Korea over patent infringement. Apple believes that the Samsung Galaxy line is copied off of iPhones and iPads, from hardware to user interface to packaging. Reuters reports that a judge previously urged the companies to resolve their conflict out of court because of their close business ties. According to Samsung’s quarterly report, Apple purchases a lot of Samsung’s semiconductors and is Samsung’s biggest client.

Apple finally won its patent on the iPhone, filed in December of 2007, and may now legally rule the market of capacitive touch-screen phones. PC Mag reports that the patent’s language is so broad that Apple possibly owns the concept of multitouch smartphones and even multitouch tablets. Intellectual property and patent experts predict that Apple will file lawsuits against competitors who make smartphones (like HTC, Motorola, Nokia, etc.) or competitors that run similar operating systems (like Android).

VoIP service Skype is going to get video calling on the iPhone very soon according to an internal document that was floating around. The document was entitled “How do I make video calls with Skype for iPhone?” A Skype exec will be on a panel at CES called “Video Calling Gets Ready for Primetime.” [Download Squad]

Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) has announced that Google Voice now works on the iPod Touch and the iPad. Even though you cannot use the iPad or iPod Touch as a phone, you can use it for initiating a call with your phone. This feature is called Click2Call.

To get started, click on the “Call” button on the Google Voice application. Then select which phones you want to ring. Google Voice will call all of them. Below is a list of some of the other improvements made on the app:

- When you enable Push Notifications, we will automatically disable Text forwarding for you, so you won’t receive multiple notifications.
- Want some quiet time? You can send all callers straight to voicemail by turning on Do not disturb in the Settings tab.
- We made it easier for you to place calls from the address book by adding a dedicated Contacts button to the Dialer tab.
- Sending text messages is now more streamlined since you don’t need to press the OK button anymore.

[Google Voice Blog]

Justin.tv now has a live video broadcasting service for the iPhone. This announcement was made about two weeks after Justin.tv was launched on the Android operating system. The Justin.tv 2.0 iPhone application not only has live streaming, but there is also chatting and Facebook/Twitter sharing features.

According to Bloomberg sources, the largest U.S. mobile phone company Verizon Wireless will soon start selling the Apple iPhone for their network. As of right now the iPhone and other Apple products exclusively work on AT&T’s network since June 2007.

Around 2,733 mobile application developers were surveyed by Appcelerator about which mobile platform they prefer.  It turns out that they said that Apple’s near-term outlook is favorable, but Google was voted best for the long-term based on a 69% vote.  Do you agree with this survey?  Why or why not?  Let us know in the comments. [ReadWriteWeb]