In November 2008, right after the initial release of Android on the first Google phone (G1), I predicted that Android would over take Apple’s iPhone OS (iOS) within 2 years. I was wrong. It took 2 years and 4 months.

At the time my statement brought on sneers from fellow iPhone lovers I had abandoned, and shrugs from my friends at Microsoft (who still think Windows Mobile has a chance), but no one really thought this clunky, boxy, designed-by-engineers operating system would really gain much ground.

Well, as the February 2011 numbers rolled out, comScore research showed Andoid now holds 33% of the smartphone market in the U.S. Compare that to BlackBerry (28%), and iPhone (25%). Considering about one-third of the 234 million people with mobile phones have smartphones, that is roughly 23 million people use Android devices.

While text messaging still holds as the number one communication channel on mobile devices, as brands are thinking about how they want to interact with their customers, if they’re thinking about building apps, the iPhone is no longer the default.