MacRumors

Hints earlier this week regarding the release of an official beta version of Google's Chrome browser for Mac have been confirmed. TechCrunch contacted received the news yesterday from a Google spokesperson, who stood by earlier reports that the Mac beta of Chrome will be available by the end of the year.

We asked Google about it and here's what they had to say, "As I'm sure you know, we generally don't comment about timelines for releasing specific features or products. But we've been quoted a few times saying Chrome for mac should be out by the end of the year." I was then pointed to an Reuters article from September that quoted Google's Product Management Vice President, Sundar Pichai, as saying that Chrome for Mac would be released by year's end.

Google's spokesperson also confirmed that the Mac version will follow a similar model as the Windows version, launching initially as part of a Beta channel for active development, with refined versions periodically promoted to a Stable channel for users looking for "rock solid" performance without the need for the latest features still undergoing development.

In other Google news, TechCrunch also reports that the company's Chrome OS, a browser-based operating system built on Linux, is expected to be launched as an early beta or development version for download within the next week.

We expect Google will be careful with messaging around the launch, and endorse a small set of devices for installation. EEE PC netbooks, for example, may be one set of devices that Google will say are ready to use Chrome OS. There will likely be others as well, but don't expect to be able to install it on whatever laptop or desktop machine you have from day one. Google has previously said they are working with Acer, Adobe, ASUS, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, and Toshiba on the project.

Gizmodo reports on a number of tidbits offered by Apple Senior Vice President of Retail Ron Johnson at a media preview event held today at the company's Upper West Side store scheduled to open in New York City on Saturday. Among the most notable items of interest were comments that Apple is looking to move forward aggressively on store openings in the coming year and is adjusting its strategy to include larger stores and more "significant stores" offering iconic presences such as the Upper West Side store.

Apple realized they were going too small with their stores, so now all of their stores will be at least "three tables wide." In other words, they're going to be bigger. They're also going to be opening more stores next year, more like 50. More of them will be "significant stores," iconic ones like the Fifth Ave. store with the Apple Cube. And they'll be going more international, adding stores all over Europe, like the UK, Paris and two in Shanghai getting those "significant stores."

Johnson also noted that the company's retail stores are averaging approximately $26 million in yearly revenue, only slightly below that of Macy's, Target, and Best Buy, but with much smaller stores leading to per-square-foot sales five times that of Best Buy. On the topic of Microsoft's retail stores, Johnson acknowledged the competition but offered up a simple response to the challenge, claiming "It's nice to have a 10-year head start."

Finally, Gizmodo offers up an inside look at the Upper West Side store, calling it a "temple" to the company's products.

I can't tell you - and the pictures can't show you - how utterly open and expansive the room feels. Apple says it has more demo units than any other store in the world. To give you an idea of the space, the walls are 45 feet tall, and could fit 11 Apple 5th Avenue Cubes inside. It's the spareness that's breathtaking. It's cold. Not literally, but the stone walls, the glass, the sheer space rob it of any sense of warmth or feeling. The only sense of life in room is the products. It's a temple to them, really.

Unwired View reports on a newly-published patent application from Apple disclosing software methods for processing pen-based computer input. While the patent application, which was filed on July 19th, 2009, is broadly written to apply to computers in general with pen-based input-only "tablets", the inventors also make reference to tablets with integrated display screens for both input and output, such as the company's much-rumored tablet device.

In particular, the described invention relates most specifically to handwriting recognition and the use of an "ink manager" to determine phrase being entered by the user before sending the phrases on to a handwriting recognition engine for deciphering.

To tell the truth, the patent app has little to do with a tablet computer per se. It's mostly concerned how to make digital ink recognition/interpretation process better, especially when filling out various forms. And it achieves that by trying to recognize full ink phrases, instead of a separate ink strokes: The ink manager collects separate ink strokes, determines when a whole phrase have been entered and passes that phrase to handwriting recognition engine.

Apple has placed a great deal of emphasis on its multi-touch technology used in the iPhone and iPod touch as a differentiator from what it has perceived as inferior stylus-based input methods. But the patent application published today indicates that the company has not completely abandoned such technologies and is in fact seeking to continue improving their functionality.

The patent application's lead inventor is Larry Yaeger, a former Apple researcher who was instrumental in designing the handwriting recognition software used in both the Apple Newton and the Inkwell feature of Mac OS X. He is currently a professor at Indiana University.

Research firm Gartner today issued a report covering worldwide mobile phone sales for the third quarter of 2009. The highlight of the data for Apple is the company's third-place showing in the smartphone category, grabbing 17.1% of that market in finishing behind market leader Nokia and Research in Motion.

Apple's worldwide smartphone share reached 17 per cent as iPhone sales totalled 7 million units in the third quarter of 2009 following the continued rollout of the iPhone 3GS in new countries. Its ASP is holding steady and sales in the fourth quarter should be even stronger as Apple starts selling in China, through one additional carrier in the UK, and in an additional 16 countries.

Overall, the mobile phone market experienced only 0.1% growth over the year-ago quarter, but smartphones continued their strong performance, growing 12.8% year-over-year.

Apple's share of the smartphone market has fluctuated significantly since the device's 2007 introduction as purchasing patterns have been affected by the company's product release cycle, seasonal variations in the industry, and introductions into new countries or wireless carriers. The general trend, however, indicates that Apple continues to outperform its competitors in the mobile phone industry as it builds market share in the fastest growing segment in the industry.

ifoAppleStore notes that Apple has taken the wraps off the company's new Upper West Side retail store in New York City in advance of the public opening scheduled for Saturday morning.

At night the store is a beacon visible for several blocks, especially for those approaching by car or on foot from the south. The glow of the ceiling lights, the backlit logo and the back-lit wall graphics are brighter than anything on Broadway. As you approach closer, the towering height of the storefront becomes apparent. Once in front of the building, you realize that Apple opted not to create another Boston or Regent Street (London) store, with a mezzanine level. They took the Scottsdale Quarter (Arizona) store and did it one better -- this single space is about two and one-half times the volume of the Scottsdale building, and with a second level hidden away below ground like Fifth Avenue (NYC).

Numerous workers were busy Wednesday night cleaning the interior and exterior of the building in preparation for the store's opening. ifoAppleStore has also posted a gallery of photos of the new store, demonstrating the sparsely-arranged ground floor, towering ceiling, and low-profile spiral staircase to the lower level.

Apple will be opening several other retail stores this Saturday, with one in Montpellier becoming the second French store after the Paris store that opened last week, and a second opening in Chermside, Australia, a suburb of Brisbane.

Update: Apple has published a press release announcing the store opening.

Set beneath a breathtaking all-glass arched roof, the street level of the Apple Store Upper West Side offers more Macs, iPods and iPhones than any store in the world for an incredible hands-on experience. The lower level features the largest area ever created by Apple for personal training and technical support, including a 45-foot Genius Bar. Located on Broadway at 67th Street, the Apple Store Upper West Side is just minutes from Lincoln Center and Central Park.

Apple today released Safari 4.0.4, bringing improvements for JavaScript and History search performance, stability improvements in a number of areas including third-party plug-ins, and fixes for a handful of security issues.

This update is recommended for all Safari users and includes improvements to performance, stability, and security including:

- Improved JavaScript performance
- Improved Full History Search performance for users with a large number of history items
- Stability improvements for 3rd-party plug-ins, the search field and Yahoo! Mail

For detailed information on the security content of this update, please visit this site: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222.

Safari 4.0.4 is available via Software Update and Apple's Safari download page. Versions for Mac OS X Snow Leopard, Leopard, and Tiger are available, as well as a single version for Windows 7, Vista, and XP.

A new study from market research firm Gartner pegs Apple's share of the personal computer market in the UK at 5.0% for the third quarter of 2009, ranking the company fifth among all vendors. The company's unit shipments increased 26.6% to move up considerably from a market share of 3.8% in the year-ago quarter.

The rankings were led by Acer, which surged into the lead in the UK with a market share of 24.2% behind the company's push into low-cost notebook and netbook computers. Dell, HP, and Toshiba all experienced significant declines in unit shipments, leading to an industry-total decline of 2.4% in unit shipments over the year-ago quarter.

Most of the vendors are facing a difficult time. "Interestingly, two vendors at either end of the price spectrum are winning the battle. At one end, Acer continued to provide price-conscious products through multiple channels to attract a wider buying audience. At the other end, Apple leveraged the "halo" effect of the Apple brand created by the iPods and iPhones into the PC arena, dominating the mid to higher price brackets."

The report notes that Apple only barely claimed the fifth position in the rankings, as Samsung generated outstanding growth of over 200% year-over-year to leap to 4.8% market share.

Gartner's data also covered individual statistics for France and Germany, as well as broader numbers for all of Western Europe, but Apple was unable to break into the top five vendors in any of those surveys.

Apple has traditionally performed much better in its home market of the United States than it has in international markets, with the company claiming 8.8% of the US market during the same quarter. The new UK results, however, demonstrate even stronger growth there than in the US over the past year, suggesting that Apple's continued success has spilled over to its international markets significantly enough to begin ranking with the market leaders there.

Security firm Intego reports that it has spotted new malware, termed iPhone/Privacy.A, that is capable of allowing hackers to access personal information stored on certain jailbroken iPhones and iPod touches. Non-jailbroken iPhones are not vulnerable to the malware.

While full details of the tool are not disclosed, it is reported to utilize the same method as the "Rickrolling" worm deployed in Australia late last week, suggesting that the new malware would only affect jailbroken iPhones and iPod touches whose users have installed SSH for remote access capabilities and failed to change the default password. It is unclear the extent to which the tool has been seen in the wild, although Intego currently categorizes the risk of the malware as "low".

When connecting to a jailbroken iPhone, this tool allows a hacker to silently copy a treasure trove of user data from a compromised iPhone: e-mail, contacts, SMSs, calendars, photos, music files, videos, as well as any data recorded by any iPhone app. Unlike the ikee worm, which signals its presence by changing the iPhone's wallpaper, this hacker tool gives no indication that it has invaded an iPhone.

Intego notes that the tool works by being installed onto a computer and then scanning the computer's network to find vulnerable iPhones.

This hacker tool could easily be installed, for example, on a computer on display in a retail store, which could then scan all iPhones that pass within the reach of its network. Or, a hacker could sit in an Internet caf and let his computer scan all iPhones that come within the range of the wifi network in search of data. Hackers could even install this tool on their own iPhones, and use it to scan for jailbroken phones as they go about their daily business.

While antivirus software can protect computers from serving as hosts for the malicious software, Intego also notes that because no software is installed on the iPhone or iPod touch during the process, no external protection for users who are vulnerable to the malware can be deployed. Vulnerable users must change their default SSH passwords in order to thwart access attempts.

Earlier this week, we noted that customers were receiving notifications that their quad-core Core i5-based 27" iMac orders had begun shipping. At the time, we had not received word about the status of order for machines carrying Intel's Core i7 processor, a $200 upgrade over the Core i5 models.

A number of readers have now reported, however, that their Core i7-based iMac orders have been shipped, with the majority of customers reporting delivery scheduled for next week.

Apple's new 16:9 widescreen iMacs in 21.5" and 27" sizes were released last month, with all 21.5" models and Intel Core 2 Duo-based 27" models shipping immediately upon launch. High-end 27" models carrying the desktop-class Core i5 and Core i7 processors, however, were announced as not shipping until November.

New orders for all 27" models are showing some delays in shipping, with Core 2 Duo models currently showing shipment in 7-10 business days and Core i5 and i7 models still simply listing a "November" shipping date, but customers who placed early orders for the machines should expect to receive them in fairly short order.

MacMall is offering MacRumors readers an exclusive 3% off iMac purchases on top of existing rebates. 3% additional discount applied at checkout.

Telephony Online reports on data from research firm Strategy Analytics that places Apple as the most profitable mobile phone manufacturer in the world for the third quarter of 2009. Apple's estimated $1.6 billion profit easily topped Nokia's $1.1 billion take for the quarter.

The firm estimates that Apple's iPhone operating profit came in at $1.6 billion in Q3, while Nokia recorded only $1.1 billion in operating profit. "With strong volumes, high wholesale prices and tight cost controls, the PC vendor has successfully broken into the mobile phone market in just two years," said analyst Alex Spektor in the research note.

Earlier this year, data from 2008 pegged Apple at approximately 20% of the mobile phone industry's total profit despite holding only about 1% unit market share. Nokia was reported to have accounted for 55% of the industry's profit in 2008.

More recently, a separate survey covering the first half of 2009 estimated Apple's share of industry profits at 32% with $2.0 billion in operating profit in its iPhone business. Apple just edged out Nokia's $1.9 billion profit, which accounted for 30% of the total industry profit, in that survey.

The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) today announced that it has officially issued specifications as part of the DisplayPort 1.1a standard for the Mini DisplayPort connector developed by Apple and implemented on its Macs since the October 2008 introduction of the 24" LED Cinema Display and refreshed MacBooks and MacBook Pros.

Apple had initially offered the standard on its own as a no-fee license in order to encourage adoption, but VESA announced early this year that it would include the Mini DisplayPort specification in its next update to the broader DisplayPort standard, opening the door for even simpler adoption by other manufacturers.

Originally developed by Apple for its new generation of portable PCs, Mini DisplayPort is much smaller than DVI (Digital Video Interface) or VGA connectors and enables full function display output on ultrathin notebooks and netbooks. Earlier this year, Apple agreed to license the mDP interface to VESA for inclusion in the DisplayPort standard.

VESA also announced that it is in the process of finalizing DisplayPort Standard 1.2, which will double the available bandwidth and open the door to a broad range of improvements in display connectivity.

VESA is finalizing DisplayPort 1.2, which incorporates mDP and doubles available bandwidth to 21.6 Gb/second. The increased bandwidth enables new capabilities such as multi-monitor support via a single output connector, higher resolutions, refresh rates and color depths, along with high performance 3D displays.