iPhone 3GS takes plunge in pool while shooting video... and lives to tell the tale

Now, we're hoping this isn't some elaborate hoax perpetrated on the kind citizens of the internet, because if it's real, it's amazing. Here's the deal: a man capturing video poolside with his iPhone 3GS somehow loses control of the device and ends up dunking the entire phone... while filming. Miraculously, he manages to fish out the handset and it's still rolling. We don't know what the lifespan was / is beyond this clip, but obviously long enough to upload the video or transfer it to a computer. Impressive stuff, though we strongly suggest you don't test this one out on your own. Check out the full video after the break.

Apple moves one million iPhone 3G S units in a weekend -- just in time for Steve's retur

Worried that Apple might not be doing so well? Concerned the company will have to start breaking open the collective piggy banks to keep the lights on? Well rest easy, friends, as the folks in Cupertino have just issued a compelling piece of PR that will surely put your mind at ease -- one stating it managed to move a million iPhone 3G S units over the weekend. That's right, in a fashion not completely dissimilar to last year's iPhone 3G launch (though with far less hiccups), bucketloads of happy buyers flooded Apple's coffers with sweet, delicious cash money for the new smartphone. The buying frenzy was apparently even exciting enough to rouse recovering CEO Steve Jobs from his convalescent state. The seemingly-now-returned honcho is quoted (for the first time in months) in the press release as saying "Customers are voting and the iPhone is winning." Winning indeed Steve... and welcome back

Apple's iPhone 3G S sports chip with 720p HD video capabilities

With Apple's new iPhone 3G S hitting store shelves in Europe overnight, the device was thrown within minutes onto the operating table and gutted, revealing a Samsung-branded system-on-a-chip (SoC) featuring a multi-format codec with untapped HD video playback and capture capabilities.

The Orange wireless boutique in Paris, France held a midnight launch of the new Apple handset, allowing the folks at Rapid Repair to be amongst the first in the world to purchase the device at roughly 6:30 p.m. Thursday Eastern time.

Wasting no time, the solutions provider took the iPhone to one of the shop's back rooms, busted out their tool kit, and began tearing the device down with the intent of comparing its internals to the iPhone 3G and identifying some of its more prominent components.

The biggest news to come out of the tear-down thus far is a positive identification of the handset's primary SoC, said to be the Samsung S5PC100, a chip that -- true to previous rumors -- is based on ARM's Cortex A8 reference design running at 600MHz. A brief check of Samsung's website, however, reveals it can run even faster.

"The S5PC100 enables the integration of various functionalities, such as, wireless communication, personal navigation, camera, portable gaming, portable music/video player, mobile TV and PDA into one device," the South Korea-based electronic maker says in a PDF published to its website. "The S5PC100 adopts a 32-bit ARM Cortex A8 RISC microprocessor and a 64/32-bit internal bus architecture, and operates up to 833MHz."

Apple appears to have chosen run the chip, which is rebranded with the following markings, below its maximum clock speed for optimal power consumption. But the additional 233MHz aren't the only capabilities of the S5PC100 that Apple has chosen to forgo in the iPhone 3G S.

Samsung 339S0073ARM K2132C2P0-50-F 0N1480911 APL0298 N1TVY0Q 0919


An Apple iPhone 3G S torn down and laid out to dry | Source: Rapid Repair.


Samsung also notes that its chip sports a high definition multi format codec enabling higher resolution multimedia functions at low power consumption. Specifically, it states that the S5PC100 "features a built-in, 720p multi format codec (MFC) video Engine which ensures smooth 30fps video encoding and playblack at low power consumption, and supports three types of TV out interface (NTSC/PAL/HDMI)."


A block diagram of the iPhone 3G S's primary SoC | Source: Samsung.



An incomplete component comparison of all three iPhone models and the Palm Pre | Source: Rapid Repair.


Apple has thus far decided not to take advantage of these HD capabilities for video recording, as the iPhone 3G S video camera will only capture clips in VGA-quality. Early reviews of handset were mixed in their assessment of the resulting video quality, with some saying it pales in comparison to that from the popular $229 Flip pocket camcorder, while others called it "quiet decent" and said the quality was "impressively smooth and natural."


An iPhone 3G S with its top case removed | Source: Rapid Repair.



The iPhone 3G S logic board (left) compared to the iPhone 3G logic board (right) | Source: Rapid Repair.



A close-up of the iPhone 3G S logic board | Source: Rapid Repair.


Some of the other components identified by the tear-down include Toshiba NAND flash RAM, an Infineon baseband controller, and a solderless, easily replaceable battery that looks very similar to the one inside the iPhone 3G. Markings on the NAND (1), baseband (2), on-board system memory (3), and battery (4) are as follows:

1) NAND Flash Memory - Toshiba TH58NVG702ELA89 IA8816 TAIWAN 09209AE
2) Infineon - 36MY1EE A9177314 Z171033
3) System Memory - 337S3754 CMA G0919 5Y930788
4) APN: 616-0434 VPN: APPLE-08-003-01(GG) Li-ion Polymer Battery: 3.7V 4.51Whr

Additional discoveries are likely to be made throughout the day and upcoming weekend, especially given that iFixit also plans to tear-down an iPhone 3G S shortly.

iPhone 3.0 HACKED!

I’m just as sick of hearing the Dev Team talk about their little “cat and mouse” game that’s being played out in the iPhone-stage. But, there’s no denying the Dev Team’s ability to keep their mouse from being eaten. For those of you that don’t know what all this hyperbole is referring to, let me put it more simply. The iPhone Dev Team has released their latest iPhone jailbreak tool - PwnageTool 3.0!

This latest version of PwnageTool will allow anyone with an iPhone or iPhone 3G to jailbreak the just-released iPhone OS 3.0 update. It’s important to note that PwnageTool 3.0 will only work on previous-gen hardware running iPhone 3.0 OS - the iPhone 3G S will not work with PwnageTool 3.0.

PwnageTool will unlock your first-gen iPhone’s baseband (the little piece of code that controls which carrier network your iPhone can connect to). Unfortunately, iPhone 3G users will have to wait until Tha Team releases their latest iPhone 3.0 OS unlock utility, called “ultrasn0w.”

It’s important to note that the previous “yellowsn0w” iPhone 3G unlock utility can’t unlock the 3.0 baseband. Only “ultrasn0w” can unlock the new baseband bundled with the iPhone OS 3.0. If you’re using an unlocked iPhone 3G, you’ll probably want to wait until the “ultrasn0w” utility is released through Cydia. Upgrading to 3.0 now will lock your iPhone until “ultrasn0w” is released.

Copied and Pasted on an iPhone.

John Hodgman: "Barack Obama Is the First Nerd President"

John Hodgman, now perhaps best known as the PC in the "I'm a Mac" ads, spoke at the Radio and Television Correspondents Association Dinner about nerds, Trekkies, and President Obama's favorite "name-brand smartphone [he] shall not name, for contractual reasons."

In this video you will learn of our President's enthusiasm for comic books, see a photo of him imitating a statue of Superman, and watch him flash the Vulcan sign.

Indeed, John Hodgman. It is an exciting time to be a nerd.

Watch John Hodgman Roasts Obama on CollegeHumor

Video: Stephen Colbert unveils the Microsoft XXbox

Taking aim at Microsoft's recently unveiled Project Natal, Stephen Colbert unveiled a new-new console on The Colbert Report the other night. The XXbox (or Ex-Xbox, one of our readers cleverly pointed out) bests Natal's lack of controller by at least one point, lacking a console and games. For about 500 bucks, it sounds like a steal. But you know, we'll buy any new gadget. Video is after the break.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Bears & Balls - Tobacco, Project Natal & Graveyard Bids
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Stephen Colbert in Iraq

ARM promises dual-core Cortex A9-based smartphones next year

The world's two most visually engaging smartphones -- the iPhone and the Pre -- share very similar cores based on ARM's Cortex A8 architecture, and with the newer, more advanced Cortex A9 in the pipeline, you can't help but let your mind wander a bit as you envision what twice as much computational power could bring to a handset. The A9 employs more advanced instruction pipelining than its predecessor, but the biggest news has to be the fact that it can pack two or more cores -- and ARM fully expects dual-core A9-based phones to hit in 2010. Of course, power consumption is the biggest constraint when it comes to this category of device, and while the company says that peak drain will exceed that on today's crop of devices, average consumption will actually drop thanks largely to a move from 65nm to 45nm manufacturing processes. Add in 1080p video promised by TI's next-gen OMAP4 silicon wrapped around an A9 core, and you've basically got a home theater in your pocket that's ready to rock for a few hours on a charge. That and Snoop Dogg, of course.

This is the first post directly copy and pasted from an iPhone.

Jimmy Fallon rocks out with Project Natal

They weren't just setting up Project Natal on the Late Night with Jimmy Fallon set last night for nothing, you know -- Microsoft's Kudo Tsunoda was on the show, giving a little demo to Jimmy, John Krasinski, and Stephen Moyer. The games were the same Richocet and Burnout Paradise demos we got to play with at E3, but hey, now it's celebrities looking silly on camera instead of us, right? Some are hypothesizing that everyone had to wear the red jumpsuits to compensate for the bright studio lighting and lack of a uniform background behind the players, but it could have just been a Fallon flourish. We're looking into it -- in the meantime, check the video below.

Update: We just hit up Fallon's producer, who told us the suits were just for fun, so that's that. Also, anyone notice Fallon asking Kudo if this would ship in 2010 and Kudo declining to answer during some crosstalk? Good times.

Smartphone Buyers Guide: The Best of the Best

As the dust settles from the last two weeks of mobile madness, one question remains unanswered: Which of the new generation of smartphones should you actually buy? We've collected everything you need to know.

We've selected the five phones that most feel like modern handsets to us—the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3G S, thePalm Pre, the HTC Magic (or, as we soon expect, the T-Mobile G2) and the BlackBerry Storm—and broken them down by hardware, software and cost. This is a guide in the strictest sense, meaning we aren't declaring winners or losers, just giving you the information you need to make your own choice. So! On with the matrices.Phones' hardware specs tend to dominate carriers' marketing, but in many cases they just don't mean much, with a few exceptions: screens, storage, graphics performance and input.

The iPhones and Pre hold a sizable advantage in the screen department, trumping the G2, which doesn't have multitouch, and the Storm, which has an ill-conceived pseudo-multitouch clickscreen that left most reviewers at best underwhelmed, and at worst downright frustrated.

In terms of storage, our phones take two fundamentally different approaches. The iPhone and Pre include healthy amounts of nonremovable storage—in the case of the iPhone 3G S, up to 32GB—which makes sense: if we're going to use our phones as they're marketed (as multimedia devices), we need space. The G2, like the G1 before it, depends on a removable microSD card for file storage, since its inbuilt memory is measured in megabytes. So does the Storm. This is fine if the carrier bundles the handset with a capacious card; Verizon is good about this. T-Mobile, on the other hand, shipped the G1 with a pitifully small 1GB card, so we'll just have to hope they're more generous with the G2.

Technical 3D ability is actually fairly uniform across this hardware, with the exception of the iPhone 3G S, which is, in this area, a next-gen product. Only Apple and HTC, though, give developers any meaningful kind of access to their handsets' graphics accelerators, meaning the G2 and iPhones (particularly the bulked-up 3G S) will be the sole options for would-be gamers. And of the two platforms, iPhone OS has amassed plenty of serious gaming titles, while Android, let's be honest, hasn't.

The Pre is an obvious standout in that it has a hardware keyboard in addition to its touchscreen. The hardware QWERTY/onscreen keyboard debate is all about personal preference, so whether this is a boon or a burden is up to you. Typing on a screen is an acquired skill—but much more so on the Storm than the iPhone or G2.

Battery life would seem to be a valuable metric; it's not. The differences in capacity and claimed endurance don't really matter much, since realistically, they all need to be charged nightly.

Note: the Storm is due a minor hardware refresh, possibly quite soon. The main change, it's been rumored, is a different touchscreen.
The greatest hardware in the world couldn't save a phone with shitty software, and your handset's OS is the single largest determining factor in how you'll enjoy your phone. We've explored the differences between the major smartphone platforms at length here, and there's no point getting too far into the specific differences right now.

To summarize: iPhone OS claims advantages in ease of use, its burgeoning App Store, and a respectable core feature set, but falters on multitasking and its lack of ability to install unsanctioned apps. The Pre's WebOS is extremely slick and friendly to multitasking, but its App Catalog is light on content, and its development SDK is somewhat restrictive. Android and BlackBerry OS are both more laissez-faire, letting users install apps from whatever source they choose. Neither of their app stores is spectacular, but Android's is markedly less anemic. More on app stores here.

Carrier preferences will often override prices, but here they are anyway. The Pre and G2 are the most economic options, and the Storm roughly ties the 3G S as the most expensive. (It's easy to underestimate how much a small monthly cost difference can add up over two years.) But again, carrier loyalty (or more likely, disloyalty) and coverage quality is as important as cost. If Sprint's killing your Pre buzz, it could be worth waiting until next year, when Verizon is rumored to pick it up. Likewise, if T-Mobile coverage in your area is patchy, don't worry: by the time T-Mobile actually offers the G2, we'll probably have at least another functionally identical handset lined up for release elsewhere.

So there you have it: everything you need to know about the latest crop of consumer smartphones. Go forth, and be gouged.

Project Natal basis for new Xbox console coming Fall 2010?

We'd be careful about putting too much stock into an admittedly far off rumor, but the gang at 1UP claim they've heard fromthose in the know that Microsoft's set to release a new Xbox console in Fall 2010, and that current media darling Project Natal is "the cornerstone" of that evolution. Specs-wise, it's suggested we're looking at only a marginal boost analogous to Nintendo's GameCube-to-Wii transition -- place your bets on how long it'll take to "max out" this time -- as well as a rebranding (Xbox Natal, anyone?) aimed at attracting the highly coveted, more mainstream / casual audience, before Mario and the crew catch a second wind with the oft-rumored Wii HD. There's nothing unbelievable about these whispers, but again, Fall 2010 is quite a ways off and anything can happen in the meantime. First unveiling will allegedly be the 2010 Game Developers Conference in early March, so your best bet for now is to hold tight and keep a close eye on who gets a primetime slot among that event's keynote speeches.

MMS and tethering functional on some AT&T iPhone 3Gs running 3.0?

AT&T's been feeding us a story that it'll offer MMS on the iPhone only "once [it completes] some system upgrades that will ensure our customers have the best experience," but here's the thing: it seems that it works right now -- if you've got a build of OS 3.0 that'll let it. None of us have been able to get it going ourselves, but we've been sent screenshots from a tipster that seem to indicate that both MMS and tethering are in full effect on the network, so there doesn't seem to be a network restriction involved (we can't verify whether the build we see here was tweaked, so we're thinking there might be some hackery in play). The strategy for ultimately deploying the features to AT&T customers is unclear, but seeing how some folks in Europe running the exact same gold build of 3.0 have access to MMS and those of us stateside do not, it's got to be a software switch that can be triggered remotely. Some form of SMS provisioning, perhaps? Let us know what you've seen out in the field in comments.

[Thanks, Arnoldo]

Update: Turns out the secret to enabling MMS and tethering lies buried in the carrier settings file, which happens to be the same black magic employed to roll out 3G MicroCell support a while back. Customer devices are at AT&T 4.0, but there's an AT&T 5.0 profile floating around the interwebs that turns the features on -- it's just a matter of finding it, installing it, and making sure that your account is provisioned for multimedia messaging. Thanks, everyone!

Nintendo Wii sets record as fastest-selling console in the US

The Wii has already set more than its share of sales records, but it looks like Nintendo has now claimed another big one, with the latest NPD figures indicating that the Wii has become the fastest-selling console ever in the United States. That milestone was apparently marked when the Wii sailed past 20 million consoles sold after just 31 months on the market, although that number is of course just a small part of the more than 50 million consoles shipped worldwide which, incidentally, has already made the Wii the fastest-selling console in the world.

Apple patent filing shows off activity monitor for skiers, bikers

Fans of more extreme sports will probably be stoked to hear that Apple just might be developing a device with them in mind.Apple Insider's discovered a recent patent filing that could possibly signal the development of a monitoring device (much likeNike+) which can detect, track, and display a visual and quantitative measure, for instance, of a skier's speed and air time. The device looks like it would contain one or more loft sensors (in one photo it is shown installed in a snowboard) and a microprocessor subsystem to determine loft time. There are of course, no guarantees that a product like this will ever see the light of day, but we sure hope so: runner favoritism must end. One more page of the filing after the break.

Why MacBook Is About to Mean Something Else Entirely

Historically, Apple loves cleanly delineated product lines, so the "MacBook Pro" re-shuffling seems strange even if the socialist element is a fun side effect. Unless they're clearing out the MacBook for something else entirely.

Think about it: Right now a single, lonely model bears the name MacBook. A model that's been around forever, too. On the other hand, there are three sizes of MacBook Pros in six, count 'em, six flavors. Lopsided much? The poor thing gets no promotion, either. It was quietly updated to be as fast as the aluminium MacBook last week, warranting just a one-line mention during the WWDC Philnote. And where's the splash pic for Apple's most affordable Mac on the Mac page?

So, why is Apple basically wasting one of their most powerful brands, their "most popular Mac"?

Because they're about to call something else MacBook.

It's the only logical explanation for the muddled, complicated and totally un-Apple product line. Why all of their core notebooks are now called MacBook Pros. Why MacBook denotes a single notebook, one that perpetually seems like it's on its way out—because it very likely is on its way out.

There are two possibilities that stand out for MacBook: A new, even cheaper notebook, following the hard price cuts across the iMac and MacBook Pro lines. Or at the very least, a completely redesigned MacBook family that looks way different than what Apple is currently calling MacBook Pro, and maybe even the current MacBook. That's the more conservative take.

The other possibility is mostly in fap-fap fantasyland, but we can't rule it out: What if Apple calls that tablet thing MacBook? (Indicating it's at least somewhat different than most people have been imagining.) What better way to use one of their most iconic brands than to signify a complete shift in mainstream computers? Calling the tablet a MacBook would be incredibly ballsy, but an incredibly powerful signal, too.

Either way, we're pretty sure Apple isn't just going to let the MacBook wither and die—something new has to be coming that's gonna be called MacBook, and we'd wager relatively soon, too.

Or maybe Apple's just becoming a little bit more like every other PC maker and doesn't know what the hell they're doing with their brands anymore. But I somehow doubt that.

100 Posts Anniversary!

THIS IS THE FIRST BLOG I HAVE MADE THAT HAS FINALLY REACHED A 100 POSTS! HURRAY!

First Pic of Mickey Rourke as Whiplash in Iron Man

Curious as to what Mickey Rourke is going to look like as Whiplash in next summer's Iron Man 2? Be curious no longer.

Whiplash (Mickey Rourke) sports a power pack on his chest that looks similar to the one used by Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.). "The technologies are definitely related, and that's part of the core theme of the film," says director Jon Favreau.

The character's alter ego, Ivan Vanko, is a Russian who, Favreau says, "has constructed his own version of a suit." Among the creative alterations: a pair of whips, powered by the suit's glowing chest piece, expected to keep Iron Man cracking. Whiplash "is going to light them up," says Rourke.

This first image of the character shows the villain making an appearance at the Monaco Historic Grand Prix.

Apple's new MacBook family: non-removable batteries, lower prices

Apple just let loose a new 15-inch MacBook Pro at WWDC 2009, with what appears to be the same built-in, non-removable battery as in the current unibody 17-incher. Phil asserts that the cell will last the average user around five years (1,000 recharges), and could last around seven hours under ideal conditions. There's also an SD card reader rather than an ExpressCard slot (seriously Apple -- replaced? -- why not just add it like every other Wintel laptop available today?). Oh, and the starting tag just dropped to $1,699.

• Starting at $1,699 (down from $1,999 in prior lineups)
  
• $1,699: 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M graphics, 250GB HDD, SD card slot, no ExpressCard
  
• $1,999: 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT graphics, 320GB HDD, SD card slot, no ExpressCard
• $2,299: 2.8GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT graphics, 500GB HDD, SD card slot, no ExpressCard
• 17-inch unibody MacBook Pro remains the same specs-wise (it's the only Apple laptop left with an ExpressCard slot), but it's getting a price cut to $2,499.
• Shipping today

Not enough for you? There's also a refreshed unibody MacBook, with the same built-in battery promising seven hours of life. This machine also gets the SD card slot, a FireWire 800 port, up to 8GB of RAM, upwards of 500GB of storage and a backlit keyboard as standard. If you're wondering, this little 13-incher is now a part of the MacBook Pro line. You just knew Apple couldn't let its remaining whiteBook outperform its more expensive unibody for long, right? It'll be available (today, we expect) in two configurations.

• $1,199: 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M graphics, 160GB HDD, SD card slot, no ExpressCard
• $1,499: 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M graphics, 250GB HDD, SD card slot, no ExpressCard

Wilder still? A new MacBook Air, which starts at $1,499 (while the SSD unit gets going at $1,799). Yeah, that's $700 less than before.


• $1,499: 1.86GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M graphics, 120GB HDD
• $1,799: 2.13GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M graphics, 128GB SSD

Safari 4 released today, offering "unparalled speed"

Among the torrent of news is the announcement that Safari 4 ships today, boasting "unparalleled speed," especially when compared to IE8 (this is Apple talking, not us). Included in the new browser is a full history search, featuring a cover flow view of the user's browsing history (as well as a full spotlight search). And it looks like they've thought a lot about the browser when building the new OS -- In Snow Leopard, when a plug-in crashes, the browser remains intact, meaning you can just reload the page, not the browser itself. Available today for Leopard, Tiger, and -- of course -- Windows.

Apple shipping Snow Leopard in September, $29 upgrade

After showing off Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" at last year's WWDC, Apple is finally ready to ship it out the door this coming September, for a quite reasonable upgrade fee of $29 for Leopard users (as opposed to the regular $129 for larger refreshes). While the added feature list is relatively slim, and there are few surprises between what was confirmed last year and the various leaks from developer previews, Apple's still giving users and developers some fun new tech to play with -- particularly the GPU-exploiting OpenCL, and the GrandCentral tech for developers to ease application optimization for multi-core processors. Pretty nerdy stuff, but if it makes our Dashboard Sudoku Widgets run faster, we can hardly complain. Other updates to the OS Apple is trotting out at WWDC:

• Apple rewrote the Finder, while keeping it mostly the same on the surface, for a bunch of "little benefits."
• There's built-in Microsoft Exchange support in the OS.
• The new version of QuickTime has a new "modern foundation," HTTP streaming and a whole new look.
• Snow Leopard has half the footprint of Leopard, amounting to 6GB in savings and 45% faster installs.
• New trackpads can handle handwriting recognition now, and there's new text selection "AI."
• Safari 4 is available for Windows, Leopard and Tiger, but Snow Leopard adds "Crash Resistance," which keeps browser and tabs intact even if a plugin crashes -- user just refreshes the page.

Possible iPhone 3G 2009 Shot

These shots of a matte black iPhone from Nowhereelse.fr match up to the rumors we've heard so far about a future iPhone, but who knows if it's real.

What we do see is a round hole that could be a front-facing camera, which is one thing that would get us REALLY excited at WWDC on Monday.

Leo Laporte Blows up at Mike Arrington

Google launches Chrome for Mac, Linux - with a caveat

Google late Thursday released developer-only versions of its Chrome browser for Mac and Linux, making good on a nine-month-old promise that it would eventually add those editions to the Windows version that debuted last September.

Mac and Linux versions are rough and unstable, warned Google. "We have early developer channel versions of Google Chrome for Mac OS X and Linux, but whatever you do, please DON'T DOWNLOAD THEM!" said Mike Smith and Karen Grunberg, a pair of Chrome product managers, in an entry to aGoogle blog. "Unless of course you are a developer or take great pleasure in incomplete, unpredictable, and potentially crashing software."

The new versions lack important features and functionality, Smith and Grunberg warned, including compatibility with Adobe's Flash Player plug-in and printing. A current bug listcatalogs other missing pieces, ranging from a working bookmark manager -- users can bookmark pages, but there's no way to retrieve a bookmark -- to a memory leak.

Google launched Chrome Sept. 2, 2008, as a Windows-only browser, but began taking names for a notification list for Mac users that same day, and for Linux users shortly after.

Chrome accounted for approximately 1.8 percent of those used last month, according to the most recent data from Web metric company Net Applications, a surge of 27 percent from the month before.

On Windows, Chrome comes in three flavors: Google's developer, beta and stable versions, in ascending order of fit and finish. Google releases more developer preview builds than betas, which in turn accumulate until the company's satisfied with their progress enough to roll out another stable build.

"[We're] trying to get Google Chrome on these platforms stable enough for a beta release as soon as possible!" added Smith and Grunberg.

Although the two program managers acknowledged that the developer preview crashes,Computerworld ran the Mac browser for several hours without a hitch.

Both the Mac and Linux editions can be downloaded from Google's site.

Palm Pre Review Matrix: What Everybody's Saying

When a bunch of reviews hit, it's useful—and sometimes funny—to see how they echo each other, and how they differ.

In the Palm Pre reviews, nobody used the word "iPhone" as much as WSJ's Walt Mossberg—he was a third more likely to use it than his colleagues David Pogue (NYT) and Ed Baig (USA Today) were, and he even lead with a discussion of it, before mentioning the Pre. Nobody wrote nearly as long as Josh at Engadget: His review is over 10,000 words; ours, the next longest, was just over 3,000. There was a lot of consensus here, though notable disharmony when it came to Sprint service and the Pre's tight keyboard.

And nobody, but nobody, mastered the metaphor like Jason Chen. Except maybe David Pogue. Read on...

Of course, there's no way to fit even all the main points into the review matrix, so if you want to go and check out the other reviews for yourself, damnit, you should!

*Apologies for not including Steven Levy's piece from Wired. We saw it too late to include it in the mix.

• NYT - David Pogue
• USA Today - Ed Baig
• WSJ - Walt Mossberg
• Engadget - Josh Topolsky
• Gizmodo - Jason Chen

Check Out All These Other Palm Pre Reviews
• Time - Josh Quittner
• Newsweek - Dan Lyons
• PC Magazine - Sascha Segan
• Laptop - Mark Spoonauer
• SlashGear and MyPre - Vincent Nguyen
• PC World - Ginny Mies