Apple is fairly reliable, but not the most reliable company of all when it comes to notebooks, according to a new study by research firm SquareTrade. The top honor goes to Asus, which surprised me, but I suppose shouldn’t have when I consider the build quality of my fairly inexpensive Eee PC. Toshiba and Sony rank next most reliable, with Apple coming in a close fourth.

I remember a time not too long ago when IBM and Apple would top the list every time, with other manufacturers coming in a fair distance behind them. IBM sold its hardware business to Lenovo, which seems to be having some effect on quality, but is Apple also slipping as it grows? I don’t think there’s enough data to identify a trend, but it is a little worrying.

Still, at least Apple is still under the 20 percent mark for three-year laptop malfunction rates, which is the measure that indicates reliability in the study. Dell is the only company below it, also under 20 percent, with 18.3. After that, things take a significant turn for the worse, with HP coming in ninth place at 25.6 percent. That means Apple is still showing better-than-average performance overall.

Electronista suggests that the reason for the divide between top-tier manufacturers and those that fall below the average is that the companies with greater than 20 percent malfunction rates tend to do much of their business in the budget laptop and notebook categories, which see higher failure rates overall than premium-priced laptops, where Apple exclusively does its business. It’s possible NVIDIA-gate accounted for some of those failures, although SquareTrade doesn’t go into detail about malfunction causes in this report.

If you’re planning your holiday shopping but want to get a good grasp of the budget available to you in advance, it helps to know what kind of deals you’re going to get. Luckily, Apple’s Black Friday discounts have been leaked early, so you can factor in those price reductions while you’re figuring out how pinched you’re going to be financially come January.

Boy Genius Report got the early tip-off, from an anonymous source. It comes in the form of what looks like a flyer image, detailing some pretty significant discounts on all things Apple, basically. They’re deep enough that you’d probably do well to hold off any Mac or iPod-related purchase for at least another 10 days just in case.

Here’s what we’re looking at, if the rumors prove true:

• Up to 30 percent off all iPods (excluding iPhone and iPod shuffle)
• Up to 25 percent off all Macs
• Up to 15 percent off all accessories, Apple software and Apple hardware

The sales seem to be available in Apple retail stores only, since the poster also states that “Select Apple stores open at 6 am,” and a line at the bottom advertises the new availability of in-store gift-wrapping. Last year we saw online Black Friday discounts, though, so it’s possible we’ll see them again.

If these deals do indeed come to pass, they would be pretty significant compared with previous Black Friday sales by the Mac maker. Twenty-five percent off of all Macs is a very good discount, for example, and would result in a $500 discount on the Core i5 27-inch iMac, or a $250 discount on the entry-level MacBook. Compare that to a $101 discount on the MacBook last year, and a $101 discount on the top model iMac.

The teaser image leaked by BGR is fairly convincing, in that it does seem to use design cues and aesthetics currently favored by Apple in its marketing materials, but it’s hard not to be skeptical in the face of sound business sense — considering Apple’s previous Black Friday discounts, and the fact that last time I checked, it really wasn’t in a position to need to offer big price cuts to bolster sales.

If these do prove true, I’ve been putting a new Time Capsule or Airport Extreme purchase on the back burner for quite some time now, and that 15 percent off is nothing to sneeze at, given Apple’s usual reluctance to offer any kind of price cut at all. Anyone else planning on making a purchase if these discounts really do apply? Something you wouldn’t buy otherwise, perhaps?

App Store developers now have more to contend with than just the fickle tastes of the humans Apple has reviewing submissions. Now, submissions also go through an automated filter that determines whether or not the app is obeying the rules and not using any of Apple’s private APIs, which is a no-no, according to the developer agreement.

The news comes via a conversation that occurred between developers on Twitter. Craig Hockenberry, best known for Twitterific, guessed that the App Store now contains a mechanism to check submitted code against proper framework use, and John Gruber responded that Apple has in fact recently begun to do just that.

The specific function of the new automated component is to check submissions for private API calls. If it finds any, the app is rejected outright. Presumably, such a check would be run at the beginning of the review process, thereby cutting down a lot on the number of submissions that must be reviewed by actual human beings. In other words, it’s a volume compensation strategy on Apple’s part.

It’s also technically fair, since Apple has said all along that private APIs are off-limits. The published reason being that Apple can’t confirm that said APIs will remain stable from release to release of the iPhone OS, meaning that something based on them might break every time an update rolls out. By forcing developers to stick with the public APIs, Apple is trying to ensure that some stability exists for end-users who depend on the hundred thousand apps or so available now in the App Store.

Despite being technically fair, the move feels a little unfair to developers, since Apple hasn’t exactly been consistent about enforcing the rules regarding private APIs up till now. One reason could have been that spotting their use just isn’t that easy, which the computer filter now rectifies. But it seems clear that Apple also looked the other way in at least a couple of cases when it suited it to do so, like with Google’s mobile search app, hence my suggestion that this has more to do with reducing workload using a non-arbitrary filter than anything else.

While the introduction of an automated layer does, on the surface, seem to guarantee a level of fairness, it also probably isn’t very encouraging to developers, who now essentially face a firewall before they gain access to individuals they can actually talk to about what’s wrong with their submission. Expect more headaches for the App Store team as the fallout for the implementation of this measure.

Scheduling a Genius Bar or One to One training session appointment has never been that difficult. Just go to Apple’s web site, enter some information, and you’re done. But a new rumor over at AppleInsider suggests that it’s about to become even easier, thanks to a new in-house developed iPhone app that could be forthcoming soon from Apple.

News of the app comes via a “source that has proven reliable in the past,” though no further information is given. The app is said to be able to create appointments for both Genius Bar and One to One, and to view membership details for programs that require a subscription. No word yet on a street date for the app.

Presumably the app would allow users to make any kind of reservation currently only available online, including a personal shopping appointment. Although the web site system currently employed is easy enough to understand and use, I imagine a dedicated iPhone app designed by Apple would make the process so easy and intuitive that I’d probably actually use it far more than I currently do, particularly for personal shopping when new products launch.

MacRumors corroborates the report via separate sources, so it seems likely that the Concierge app will be forthcoming. I’d expect it to appear before the holidays, so that shoppers can take advantage of it pre-gift giving, and people on the receiving end of Apple products can use it after the holidays to schedule appointments.

The Concierge app would be the latest move in a series of efforts focused on improving Apple’s retail performance, including in-store pickup for holiday shoppers, more and improved stores, and the new EasyPay touch system.

AdMob, the mobile advertising firm that recently made headlines thanks to a Google acquisition, might have become part of the Apple fold if things had worked out differently, according to a report by Bloomberg that appeared this weekend. Apple reportedly approached AdMob with interest before the Google deal went down.

That’s according to “people familiar with the matter” speaking to Bloomberg. It isn’t clear which side of the deal the source was on, but he or she declined to go on record since the proposed talks were never made public. Apple is said to have contacted AdMob “a few weeks” before Google made its successful $750 million bid for the firm.

If true, the rumors point to the increasingly fierce competition between two major players in the mobile phone game. Google’s Android is being adopted by more and more manufacturers and distributed on more devices everyday. To have a piece not only of the revenue from the use of Android apps and devices, but also from the advertising that appears on those phones, is a huge boon for the search giant.

It’s unclear why Apple’s bid didn’t succeed, if it was indeed made. It’s possible that Google made a better offer while Apple was still in talks with AdMob, or that the advertising firm used the Apple offer as a bargaining tool in enticing Google. All of the companies involved in both deals declined to comment on the reports made by the anonymous source.

Acquiring a mobile ad firm would have been a bit of a departure for Apple, which is still a hardware manufacturer first and foremost, but it is a logical move for Cupertino to make. Many of the ads AdMob displays in mobile apps direct users back to other programs in the App Store, so essentially Apple would just be closing the loop and taking in additional revenue by promoting its own revenue-generating software delivery method. Plus, it could probably use the company to place hardware ads as well, promoting less successful products through the massively popular iPhone.

If Apple is genuinely interested in getting into online advertising, it could attempt another acquisition, or it may start hiring staff with the necessary skill sets. I’d hazard a guess that if the computer maker did make a failed bid for AdMob, it’ll be twice shy about getting into the game now, since Google now controls an intimidating 30 percent to 40 percent of the mobile advertising market. It’d be hard to gain a solid foothold at this point.

Apple previewed its Upper West Side store in New York yesterday. Besides welcoming the media into the company’s latest example of retail minimalism taken to its logical extreme, Apple Senior VP Ron Johnson talked retail.

Glass and stone enclose 8,500 square feet of retail space on street level, topped with a glass ceiling 45 feet above, and with a glass spiral staircase leading to the floor below. According to Gothamist, which has some really nice photos, the street level enclosure could fit 11 of the glass cubes like the one in front of the 5th Avenue store.

“We opened our first store in Manhattan seven years ago, and the response has been incredible,” said Johnson, and not just at New York stores. A look at the numbers shows just how successful the Apple Stores have been.

Apple opened its first store in May 2001. At the time, it was a controversial decision, and not just because the store design looked like something out “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Rival PC retailer Gateway was cutting back on its stores, but Steve Jobs envisioned Apple Stores as a boon to both sales and marketing. One goal was to eventually put an Apple Store within driving distance of 85 percent of consumers in the U.S., a goal which must be nearing achievement. For 2009, Apple opened more international stores than domestic. The company now intends to open at least one Apple Store in one new country a year.

Further, according to Gizmodo, the company plans on opening “more like 50″ stores in the current fiscal year, including more “significant” stores. The outlets, formerly known as “flagship stores,” will be built in multiple countries in Europe as well as Canada, and at least one in Shanghai, China. Also, in the future, stores will be larger in general, making room for more product tables, as well as a bigger Genius Bar. Anyone who has sought technical support at an Apple Store can see the need for that improvement. As for the number of stores being opened, 50 in 2010 would equal that of 2007, which is especially impressive considered the current difficult economic times.

However, Apple and the Apple Stores appear immune to those economic troubles. More than 170 million people visited Apple Stores this year, and for the quarter just ending that meant $1.87 billion in revenue. Average sales per store is now $26 million, coming in behind competitor’s like Best Buy, but besting Best Buy by a factor of five in terms of sales per square footage, $4,300 to $872. Apple beats even Tiffany’s on a retail space-based comparison.

Finally, there is the marketing factor. According to Apple, there are more than 100,000 applications on file for positions at Apple Stores. For the Upper West Side store alone, 10,000 applications were submitted, 2,500 applicants were interviewed and 200 were hired. While it’s something of a jibe to describe Apple as a cult, if you think of Apple Stores as metaphorical churches, or in the case of the Upper West Side, a cathedral, one role of Apple Store employees becomes clear:  making converts. Consider this: Half of those purchasing Macs at Apple Stores are new to the platform. That statistic that hasn’t changed since the first Apple Store opened more than eight years ago.

While the Upper West Store stands out architecturally, it is Apple Retail that has arguably done as much for the company as OS X, the iPod and the iPhone.

iPhone devs are a rebellious bunch, and they don’t like to be bullied by anyone other than their Apple, which both frustrates and affirms their existence. Now, in light of what some might call a campaign being waged against the App Store by a well-known trademark troll, many iPhone devs are protesting what they see as Apple’s cowardice in the face of unjust threats.

According to TUAW, the trademark troll in question is none other than Tim Langdell, founder of the “gaming company” Edge Games. In reality, Edge Games produces very little beyond copyright infringement suits, which it launches against any and all games that feature the word “edge” in their title. EA’s Mirror’s Edge recently fell between Langdell’s crosshairs, for example, despite the fact that the game itself bears no similarity to any of Edge Games’ roster of “planned” titles.

Apparently the App Store has been a prime target for Tim Langdell and Edge Games. Reports claim that all he has to do is contact Apple and let them know that a game is in violation of his trademarks — which again, basically means it has “edge” somewhere in the title — and Apple pulls the game without much fuss. No doubt Apple just doesn’t want to deal with yet another legal battle that could ensue if Langdell gets the opportunity to take things beyond the cease-and-desist phase, but this really seems unfair to honest game devs who actually work for their money.

In protest, a group of iPhone devs are changing the names of their games to include “edge” in the titles, with the desired outcome being that Apple will realize that to continue just disallowing the word completely will significantly affect the App Store’s catalog of offerings. So, for example, Canabalt becomes “Canabedge,” the Eliss sequel becomes “Edgeliss” and Critter Crunch becomes “Critter Credge.” All of the changes mentioned haven’t actually been made to the apps in the store, but on developer web sites as a show of solidarity.

Even though this particular protest limits itself to the area beyond Apple’s sphere of control, it does demonstrate a promising solution to App Store bully tactics. If developers could organize in a similar manner, but with bigger numbers and with the support of some of the pillars of the App Store, they could more effectively combat unfair policies. Apple will be less likely to anger content producers if it has potential ramifications across its catalog. Let’s see a developers rights advocacy group come to pass, so articles about the injustices of the App Store can become a more infrequent occurrence.

Earlier this year (right at the beginning, in fact), we brought news that the Video Electronics Standard Association (VESA) might potentially make the Mini DisplayPort standard, meaning that manufacturers outside of Apple can now use it in their products without Apple’s approval, including rival computer makers, among others.

The Mini DisplayPort (mDP) standard is described as a smaller form factor of the DisplayPort connector itself. The smaller connector is aimed at devices like thin portable computes and add-in cards that need to support multiple display interfaces. Hopefully, display and display accessory makers will adopt the standard, reducing the need to purchase expensive Apple-branded adapters.

The new mDP is for Version 1, Revision 1a of the standard, though DisplayPort 1.2 including mDP is in the works, which will double the available bandwidth of the cable tech to 21.6 Gb/second. That would mean that multi-monitor support via a single cable would be feasible, as well as higher resolutions and improved color depth and refresh rates. 3-D displays necessary for demanding graphical applications could also be supported with the new version of the standard.

As a result of this new standard creation by VESA, we could see a flood of mDP-toting computing devices, or we could see very little change at all. As with FireWire, many computer makers might opt to skip mDP or DP in favor of more established technologies like DVI and VGA, since they are more widely available and don’t necessitate a change to manufacturing processes. The one thing mDP has going for it is its size, and makers of MacBook Air competitors will probably be the first to bite, if anyone does.

Security firm Symantec is warning computer users about a new Mac-specific Trojan that deletes files on the user’s hard drive, according to Techworld.com. It has dubbed the piece of malware “OSX.Loosemaque,” and uploaded a YouTube video of how it goes about its nefarious purpose.

Basically, it’s a Space Invader clone wherein when you kill an alien, a file in your home folder is deleted. It looks like it’s evil — and designed to perform such a task without the knowledge of the Mac owner on which the program resides. But it isn’t. It’s an art project that clearly advertises its purpose and nature to all who would wish to use it.

The game, dubbed Lose/Lose, is the brainchild of Zach Gage, who created the program as part of an online art installation and released it for public download in September. It’s intended purpose is not to dupe unsuspecting gamers, but to pose questions about the relationship between killing in video games and real-life moral issues. Gage says as much in a statement on his web site:

By way of exploring what it means to kill in a video-game, Lose/Lose broaches bigger questions. As technology grows, our understanding of it diminishes, yet, at the same time, it becomes increasingly important in our lives.

Even if a user were to download the game from a different, less well-intentioned place, the game itself warns users right when it opens, stating that “Killing in Lose/Lose will likely result in files on your hard drive being deleted. You have been warned.” Of course, that doesn’t mean that an intelligent programmer couldn’t remove or change said message, and redistribute the game themselves with the intent of causing harm.

That’s what Symantec’s worried about, and why the firm decided to issue its warning about the so-called Trojan. Of course, the company took the opportunity to recommend installing security software as a means to protect against this kind of dangerous artistic expression, seeing as that’s the business it’s in.

Should you worry about this game or threats derived from it? Not unless you are one of the slim few whose retro Mac gaming addiction is so acute that you feel the need to hunt around the digital frontier in suspicious and shady locations looking for independent games of questionable quality and without any sort of legit distribution channels. Or if you happen to be a devoted patron of the arts, and therefore can’t resist the urge to download software you know full well will harm your computer and destroy your files, all for the sake of the artistic effect it has. In either case, anti-virus software won’t help.

It’s a game series that’s gotten much love over the years, despite, or perhaps because of, the cheesy live action cut scenes featuring actors like Tim Curry. Now, Command & Conquer comes to the iPhone with Command & Conquer: Red Alert ($9.99, iTunes link), named after its PC and console counterpart released in 1996.

How well does the beloved RTS translate to the iPhone platform? That depends on what you’re looking to get out of the game. EA Mobile has clearly tried to faithfully translate the experience, but as with any translation, no perfect one-to-one relationship can exist. What does come through, however, is definitely worth looking at.

Graphics & Audio

Perhaps just to make me sad, EA chose not to go with live action mission briefings for this installment of the series, opting instead to brief you with static cartoon images and scrollable text. It’s not nearly as pleasant as hammy acting, but it does get the job done and prepare you adequately for the in-game action.

In-game graphics look great, and are probably a bit of an improvement over their original counterparts in the PC version. Units are clearly distinguishable from one another, animations are smooth, and the visual special effects look good. My sole complaint for the in-game look of things is that units can tend to stack, which renders some of them invisible. It’s confusing and can hamper effective unit management.

Sound is good, with music from Red Alert 3, which is the latest game in the series for the PC and consoles. In-game voices are well-recorded and clear, as are most sound effects. Again, the lack of audio in briefings and other between-action components is a little disappointing, but not terribly so.

Gameplay

As with any real-time strategy port for the iPhone, the key to enjoyable gameplay lies in making sure the controls are well-designed and intuitive. This can be particularly challenging even when porting RTS games to consoles from the PC, so EA has its work cut out for it with Command & Conquer on the iPhone.

Selecting and commanding individual units on the iPhone is simple enough. You touch a unit to select it, and touch somewhere else to tell it where to go or what to attack. To select multiple units, you have to activate a selection tool by clicking an icon in the lower left-hand corner. At first it wasn’t clear (I hadn’t reached that part in the tutorial yet) and I tried tapping and dragging and two-finger pinch and zoom type gestures.

Once you have selected a group of units, though, you can assign them to a command group using another icon at the lower left of the screen. This assigns them to one of three slots on the left, and allows you to re-select that group at any time with a simple tap. It’s the saving grace of the game, control-wise, and I wish there were more than three spots available to assign unit groups to.

The campaigns are fun, and not too challenging. There is both a Soviet and an Allied campaign, each of which contains five chapters, and there’s a skirmish mode with customizable starting resources and different maps, which really adds to the replay value of the game.

All told, EA Mobile does a great job skirting the limitations of the iPhone’s controls, and provides ample gameplay while still retaining a fairly casual feel, so that you can pick it up and put it down as necessary between meetings or while commuting.

Verdict

For an iPhone game, Command & Conquer: Red Alert feels polished and professional, but it leaves me wanting something more. I can’t help but yearn for the easier controls and richer storyline and gameplay of the PC version, which may in fact be what EA was intending. Perhaps the iPhone game is meant as a sort of teaser demo to attract new customers to the PC/console line. Either way, despite solid gameplay, Red Alert left me underwhelmed. I’d wait for the inevitable price drop to $6.99 or less before picking this one up.

481 days. That’s how long it took the App Store to go from opening its virtual doors with 500 applications on July 11, 2008 to a catalog of more than 100,000 applications downloaded more than 2 billion times.

Not surprisingly, the folks at Apple are pleased.

“The App Store, now with over 100,000 applications available, is clearly a major differentiator for millions of iPhone and iPod touch customers around the world,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “The iPhone SDK created the first great platform for mobile applications and our customers are loving all of the amazing apps our developers are creating.”

The amazing thing is that it’s likely not even Apple knew just how successful the App Store and SDK would be or how it would spawn so many competitors (GigaOM Pro, subscription required).

In June 2007, it was Apple CEO Steve Jobs talking up a different method application development for the iPhone:

“Our innovative approach, using Web 2.0-based standards, lets developers create amazing new applications while keeping the iPhone secure and reliable.”

Imagine for a moment if Apple had stuck to that ideal of a web-based platform. I believe it would be called the Palm Pre.

Of course, it’s possible that Apple knew all along that there would be a real SDK for the iPhone OS, almost assuredly so for major partners like game developers. Apple again pushed that gaming concept for iPhone OS with today’s announcement, too. EA Mobile VP Travis Boatman chimed in on the press release, saying that the App Store has “forever changed the mobile gaming industry and continues to improve.” You can bet Nintendo and Sony believe at least the first part of that statement, much to their chagrin.

What you didn’t find in the press release was what, exactly, is being done to improve the flawed approval process. While Apple talks about addressing issues, there is no evidence of real, systemic change. As the App Store moves inevitably towards 500,000, and then its millionth application, you have to wonder if the App Store can withstand the stress of its own incredible success.

China Ontrade, a wholesale parts distributor that ships pre-production parts from upcoming devices, has just posted a part it calls the “Apple iPhone 4 Generation Midboard.” While not particularly pretty to look at, or indicative of any exciting, new features for the upcoming model, the part is tantalizing because it represents the first piece of leaked, hard info potentially linked to the next-gen iPhone.

It’s even more exciting because China Ontrade has a history of being accurate with its early leaks. As Gizmodo points out, the site began selling spare LCDs and other parts for the 3GS a month before its official release, and the parts turned out to be accurate when the iPhone received its customary teardown examination following its launch in June of 2009.

But that was a difference of one month, not eight months, as would be the case with this new part if Apple sticks to its standard June release schedule for new iPhone models. To have production parts ready eight months before launch is just bad business, since it costs money to store them all. It could be a part from a pre-production testing model, but it doesn’t make sense that the factory would be building them in large enough quantities that they’d have lots of spares to sell through China Ontrade.

Gizmodo suggests an interesting alternate theory: What if a new iPhone is only around a month away? It seems far-fetched, but there is some solid reason to suspect it might be possible. First, the 3GS, while successful, represented only an incremental update. A true successor coming around half a year after its launch wouldn’t be out of line with the product life cycle of some of Apple’s other hardware.

Second, Android is gaining ground and becoming more popular with network operators, due largely to Google’s less-than-free model for licensing its OS and applications. Further product line differentiation, and the availability of three distinct models of iPhone simultaneously, could help Apple block Google’s progress.

For now, I remain skeptical, but China Ontrade has promised to offer more parts for the upcoming fourth-generation iPhone for sale on its site in the near future, and shots of the device itself, too. The site also recently posted a part it claims is from Apple’s upcoming tablet, too, so it’s entirely possible that following that and the 3GS part reveal last summer, it experienced a heady spike in traffic and orders, and has thus learned, through positive reinforcement, that making claims about having hands-on access to parts from upcoming Apple devices is good for business.

When Leopard was introduced, backing up became an automatic and effortless operation. Set it and forget it. Unfortunately, Time Machine backups are not off-site and don’t protect you against an on-site disaster. When I previously covered some online off-site backup solutions, Apple’s backup utility was not one of them.

Apple Backup is still a nifty way to back up critical files to your MobileMe account, or any hard drive you can mount, and I personally use it every day to back up my most critical files. I have tons of space on my MobileMe account, so I might as well use it. Best of all, it’s a free program with a MobileMe subscription.

However, in the move from .Mac to MobileMe and from Leopard to Snow Leopard, the development of this utility has seemingly stopped. The latest version is 3.1.2, and it was released on Oct. 27, 2007 — over two years ago. The branding of the program still states it does backups to your “.Mac” account and doesn’t mention MobileMe. I find it a complete resource hog while running in the background. Obviously, it’s not optimized for 64-bit processors. Humorously, it still has Quickpick options in the interface to automatically back up Internet Explorer data. Internet Explorer hasn’t been released for the Mac in over half a decade. If that doesn’t convince you Apple Backup needs updating, then I’m not sure what will.

Apple, it’s time to update Backup, and here’s what I want on the feature list.

First, make it fit into the current Apple product line. Change the references to .Mac, and optimize it for Snow Leopard. Additionally, allow me to schedule backups directly from iCal.

Next, give me Quickpicks for programs currently in use by typical Apple users. Remove the backup options for Internet Explorer and add programs such as Firefox and Quickbooks. While you are tweaking the code, make it easy for users to back up their Preferences directory. Sure, it’s not that hard to do it manually, but the average Apple user doesn’t realize how critical preferences are.

If you really want to knock my socks off, include encryption options like you did with the latest iPhones. I hate not having encrypted backups. Speaking of iPhones, how about a Quickpick to allow the automatic off-site backup of our existing iPhone backups?

Apple’s Backup application used to be a great added value for .Mac/MobileMe users and a convenient way for all Mac users to do backups. It has grown very long in the tooth and needs to be made relevant again. Apple, you have your marching orders, so get to work! Readers, don’t forget to add feature request in the comments below.

For October, OS X 10.6 and iPhone OS 3.0 continued to make incremental gains in market share, as did Safari. Unfortunately for the Apple web browser, Google’s Chrome is gaining faster.

Compiling data from more than 160 million visitors to its worldwide network of sites, web metrics firm Net Applications has released numbers for the month. For web browsers, Internet Explorer still represents more than 60 percent of the market. That would be great for Microsoft, if it weren’t for the fact IE is down about 10 percent from a year ago and Firefox is up about 5 percent. Safari now stands at 4.4 percent, up from 4.24 percent in September, and 2.87 percent last year, and that’s great, but not as great as Chrome.

Based on WebKit and released just over a year ago for Windows, Google’s Chrome is now at 3.57 percent, up from 3.17 percent in September. Chrome’s rate of growth, plus the imminent release of a Mac version, as well as one for Linux, leads inexorably towards Chrome passing Safari, most likely by year’s end. The problem with Safari is that the Windows version just never caught on. After more than two years, its market share is yet to reach a third of 1 percent. To put that in perspective, more people browse the web with Safari from an iPhone than Windows.

As for iPhone OS, it continues to trend slowly upward. At 0.37 percent in October, and combined with 0.07 percent for the iPod touch, iPhone OS now measures 0.44 percent of total OS market share. While that may seem insignificant, it’s a little less than half what Net Applications reports Linux as having. Unlike Linux, the iPhone OS is steadily increasing share, and with the introduction of the iPhone in China and the U.S. holiday season, iPhone OS may break half a percent by the end of the year. To put that number in perspective, it’s about a 10th the market share of Mac OS X.

Nonetheless, Mac OS X continues to make small, steady gains in market share. OS X was at 5.26 percent for October, up from 5.12 percent in September — so much for Windows 7 hurting the Mac. Even better, a year ago OS X was at 3.79 percent, and a year before that at 3.43 percent. By October 2010, it’s quite possible OS X will have doubled its market share in three years. At 7 percent, that wouldn’t quite be the “rounding error” Steve Ballmer recently suggested OS X was when compared with Windows.

Regarding market share by version, after jumping to 18 percent in the month after release, Snow Leopard increased to just 21 percent of OS X users for October, with plain-old Leopard accounting for 50 percent of the user base. While that’s something of a plateau, it will be interesting to see how adoption between Snow Leopard and Windows 7 compares. A week after the official launch, Windows 7 is at 3 percent, up from 2 percent a week ago based on those using early release versions. Sounds like a rounding error to me.

Microsoft’s advertising strategy with the latest installment of Windows is basically to none-too-subtly deride its predecessors, and it does appear to be helping Windows 7 gain traction among consumers. Unfortunately, it also might be contributing to the success of Mac OS X, or at least, it isn’t doing anything to slow down the steady progress of the competition from Apple.

That’s according to preliminary data released Sunday from a report by Net Applications which breaks down the Internet presence of Mac, Windows and Linux machines for the month of October. Microsoft’s hope that Windows 7 would slow the sure and steady pace of Apple’s growth appears to have been unfounded, at least at this early stage.

Windows still controls the lion’s share of the computer market, of course, with a huge 92.54 percent total share. But that’s down 0.25 percent from September. And yes,  Windows 7 did gain ground during the month, despite being officially available for purchase for only nine days at the end of October, but Net Applications explains that it held more than 2 percent going into the survey, owing to the use of pre-release versions like the beta and the release candidate.

Net Applications also points out, in a separate report, that much of Windows 7’s gain during October (it ended the month at 2.85 percent) came from XP’s market share, so it doesn’t represent the sort of “switch back” users Microsoft was looking for, only upgraders who skipped Vista in favor of the older, more stable OS.

Mac’s share jumped to 5.26 percent, up from 5.12 percent during the previous period. That’s a gain of 2.73 percent overall, which is a good number, but not nearly as high as the 5 percent gain Apple experienced in September. The slowdown might be due to a surge thanks to early adoption of Snow Leopard which is now coming to an end.

Note that Net Applications isn’t taking this data from sales numbers, but from visits to its client web sites, which add up to an impressive 160 million total. That’s a fairly large sample base. Apple 2.0 does point out that this particular methodology tends to favor devices like the iPhone, which account for more frequent web visits due to their ease of use.

The key to the future success of both companies will be converting the large Windows XP user base, which still accounts for 70 percent of all users. Both Apple and Microsoft will be looking to convert those users as they inevitably decide to upgrade. Holiday season numbers over the next few months should give a good indication of who will win out in the competition for those consumer dollars.

A new survey by research firm ChangeWave has Apple’s iPhone on course to eventually best BlackBerry as the U.S. device of choice when it comes to smartphone options. It also reflects good news for the smartphone industry in general, since overall ownership of the data-hungry cellular devices is up to 39 percent of respondents, which represents a jump of more than 200 percent from the same time two years ago.

ChangeWave’s last survey took place in June of this year, and since then, Apple’s stock has jumped 5 percent. The last time there was a big jump in Apple sales, the iPhone 3G was introduced, and it lasted six months before the rise started to plateau, though it always showed positive growth. If that trend is any indication, the iPhone 3GS should continue to inflate sales until the new year at least, which could put Apple in a position to overtake RIM.

RIM fell one percentage point from the last survey period in June 2009, from 41 percent to 40 percent. The BlackBerry has been steadily falling since January of 2008. The smartphone maker does have the Storm 2’s release on the horizon, but competing against major, new devices like the Palm Pre and the 3GS will be tough.

Speaking of the Pre, Palm is also included in the survey, and remains behind in third place with only 7 percent market share. When ChangeWave started conducting its survey in June of 2006, Palm owned 36 percent of the market, topping RIM, its only close competitor, which had 30 percent. Worth noting is that this is the first survey in nearly two years where Palm didn’t lose some of its share.

Aside from being the only company to show positive growth between surveys, Apple is also the leader going forward in terms of planned purchases by respondents. Thirty-six percent of those surveyed who plan on making a smartphone purchase in the next three months are planning on choosing an iPhone. RIM follows with 27 percent choosing BlackBerry devices.

Apple also leads in another very important category: customer satisfaction. A whopping 74 percent of respondents say they are “Very Satisfied” with their iPhones, while only 43 percent of RIM customers say the same about their BlackBerry devices, the next closest cell phone on the survey. It’s a telling gap, and one which explains why Apple could overtake its perennial rival in the U.S. sometime in the next six months. A new product launch in June could seal the deal.

Apple recently introduced two new formats, iTunes LP and iTunes Extras, which deliver additional content to album and movie purchases, respectively. Apple also only just updated the iTunes Store Terms and Conditions agreement, and AppleInsider spotted some key changes in that document that point to an upcoming Apple TV update that will support the new formats.

It seems inevitable that the new bonus material featured in LP and Extra releases, which includes things like photos, videos, mini-documentaries and commentary, would become accessible on Apple’s home theater device, but this is the first official confirmation that it is in fact on the way. It would seem to suggest that we’ll see the update sooner rather than later, too.

Both iTunes LP and iTunes Extras are based on the TuneKit JavaScript format, which uses HTML, CSS and other open web standards. It’s designed for a 1280×720 pixel resolution, which fits perfectly with HD TV sets and the HD output resolution of the Apple TV.

While it may not come as a surprise, a new major update for the Apple TV firmware would be the first big one since the “Take Two” 2.0 update that came at Macworld Expo in January 2008. Other things expected to arrive with it include Quicktime X and the HTTP Live Streaming protocol, both of which were recently introduced as features of OS X Snow Leopard.

It sounds like it’s shaping up to be a decent little upgrade for Apple’s main foray into the living room, but it doesn’t really sound like anything that’s going to turn heads among people who are on the fence about buying the device. Apple has recently taken some steps to increase Apple TV sales, including getting rid of the 40 GB model altogether and dropping the price of the 160 GB version. Which is great, but there’s still a lot more Apple should be doing to make the device viable.

Like the Mac mini, the Apple TV seems to be lagging behind other Apple offerings in terms of the tech behind it and its software capabilities. Many new TVs coming to market now offer built-in functionality comparable to a lot of what Apple TV brings to the table, beyond access to the iTunes Store and all of its associated content. And HD-capable nettops from companies like Asus offer a fully functional home theater PC at a comparable price, with better storage options and more.

A software update is great, but Apple needs to do more than just what’s expected to breathe some life back into its least exciting device.

Last week, Apple announced the Magic Mouse, which is its new standard pointing device, complete with Bluetooth connectivity and multitouch gesture support. I promptly called my local Apple store, and a staff member told me they weren’t in stock and to try back again later in the week. I did, and again, no luck. It’s now been over a week, and no stores seem to have stocked them yet.

One staff member at the flagship Toronto store said that the delay was due to software incompatibility, and that the mice would be available following an update release from Apple. Late yesterday, we received said update, which makes the Magic Mouse compatible with Mac OS X Leopard, includes a driver for 10.6.1. OS X 10.6.2, which is coming soon, and is said to support it out of the box.

Both the 10.5.8 and 10.6.1 update descriptions say nothing beyond that they allow you to “take advantage of your Magic Mouse special features.” They don’t even explicitly say anything about multitouch, but what other special features could they be talking about? The Snow Leopard driver is nearly double the size of the Leopard one, at 64MB vs. 36MB. Both have to be downloaded from Apple’s support site, and won’t show up in your update menu unless you actually have the Magic Mouse already.

Which brings me to my second point: Does anyone actually have the Magic Mouse already? I mean, besides those early adopters of the new iMac model, with which it ships. I know for a fact us TAB staffers are finding it hard to get our hands on one (short of trying out the store display models), both through Apple’s brick-and-mortar retail stores and its online counterpart.

All Apple stores seem to have them on display, but I’ve yet to run across one that actually has them for sale when you ask. As I mentioned above, the Toronto Eaton Centre Apple store employee seemed to think it had to do with Apple getting the necessary software out so that it wasn’t selling unsupported hardware, but they hadn’t even received a shipment yet — they weren’t just holding off on actual sales.

Is it just me, or is this the most poorly executed product launch Apple’s had since the iPhone 3G and iPhone OS 2.0 were introduced? It seems like the Magic Mouse was rushed out to meet a deadline that centered around the iMac and new unibody plastic MacBook, despite the fact that the software backend wasn’t actually ready for release.

The resulting delay could affect sales. I know my initial fervor about the Magic Mouse has been tempered now that I’ve been able to think about it. My current pointing device needs are more than met, and unlike with the iPhone, delayed availability is weakening my desire to own a Magic Mouse, rather than strengthening it.

VMware Fusion 3 for Mac is now available. That’s right, new virtualization software for your Mac, conveniently timed for the release of Windows 7. Actually, it’s very likely the release of VMware’s latest iteration of its OS virtualization software, Fusion 3, got its release date precisely because of Microsoft’s street date for its latest operating system, because Fusion 3 is specially designed to support Windows 7.

Fusion 3 comes just over a year after VMware released Fusion 2, in September 2008. A year is a long time in the life cycle of a piece of software, and in the case of Fusion, the lapsed time between versions shows in the numerous improvements made to the program that allows you to run another OS on a virtualized machine inside of OS X.

As mentioned above, Fusion 3 goes out of its way to make sure your Windows 7 virtualization experience is as seamless as possible. That includes things like support for Windows Aero, Flip 3D and Windows Aero Peek visualization effects, and the ability to run OpenGL 2.1 and DirectX 9.0c, which should help with some of your gaming needs, especially if you’re into older MMOs that don’t have a native Mac client.

VMware’s sales tactics for Fusion 3 also focus on recent switchers who are having trouble adjusting to their new and unfamiliar environment on a Mac. For example, the improved Migration Assistant helps you copy your entire PC onto a virtual machine on your new Mac hardware quickly and easily using an Ethernet connection. VMware goes as far as to say it works “just like” Apple’s own Migration Assistant for setting up or restoring a Mac-based computer.

There’s also a lot of improvements under the hood, including a new 64-bit native core engine for Macs that can handle it. That means that Snow Leopard users will be getting the most bang for their buck with the latest version. Memory usage on all Vista and Windows 7 machines is also greatly reduced, so in general, you should experience much snappier performance.

Finally, a lot of improvements have been made to VMware Fusion’s Mac Unity mode, which makes the virtualization experience much more integrated than it is in its default, windowed configuration. The list of new features is long, but some highlights include the ability to search for Windows apps like Mac ones, assigning the new always-on Applications menu to a hotkey of your choosing, accessing recently opened documents using Windows apps, full Exposé and Dock Exposé support for all Windows apps, and 3D gaming/1080p video playback while in Unity mode.

Fusion 3 retails for $79.99, but if you’re upgrading from Fusion 1 or 2, you qualify for a special price of $39.99, or $59.99 with a subscription that includes major version upgrades for the next 12 months. Judging by the last upgrade schedule which saw Fusion 3’s release falling one month outside that bubble, that subscription option isn’t looking all that appealing. If you’re picking it up, let us know how you find it.

The tablet rumor mill is heating up, which is in keeping with the early 2010 release date that’s been mentioned in earlier reports. The latest news to hit the web is that Apple has been talking to the Australian media about content provision for the fanboi device of legend.

The news comes via Australian paper The Sydney Morning Herald, which reports that Apple is providing technical details about the tablet multimedia device (which remains unconfirmed, despite all the buzz surrounding it) to media providers in the hopes of sussing out how strong interest is.

No one representing the Australian companies approached would actually go on record about the recent sales pitch by Apple, but presumably the Herald’s source is someone from one of them speaking off the record. The source clearly wasn’t privy to the specifications themselves, or I’m the sure the Herald would’ve printed those, too. Instead, the paper just mentions existing rumors about the device’s size, touchscreen and purpose.

Also mentioned is the Kindle, which had previously attempted to make the same kind of overtures in Australia that Apple is supposedly now making. The problem with the Kindle was that Amazon wanted a 70 percent cut of revenue from all media sold for its device, while Apple is said to be looking for the same 30 percent that it asks of developers selling applications via the App Store. That’s one of the benefits of being a hardware company first and foremost, I suppose.

The content will apparently be delivered via individually branded apps that will allow for in-app purchases and direct digital distribution — which reinforces rumors that the tablet will be based on iPhone OS, not on Mac’s desktop and notebook OS X. Personally, I’m finding it harder and harder to pinpoint exactly where this device will fit in with current customer needs. It seems sort of like a Nokia Internet Tablet or Archos’ recent Android-based media player.

Earlier this week, it was reported that New York Times editor Bill Keller mentioned the “impending Apple slate” in an off-the-record meeting with newsroom staff, and many NYT executives and book publishers have made comments in the past year about Apple approaching to take the temperature for a tablet-type device.

Long story short, the storm clouds are gathering, and now there’s little else we can do but watch and wait for the rain to start, unless Apple has found little reason to make it rain at all. All of these rumors talk about Apple gauging the interest of media companies in such a device, yet none talk about how the companies in question responded to said inquiries. If an acceptable level of interest wasn’t present, could Apple shelve this tablet before it ever sees the light of day?