It's been a long slog getting Firefox Mobile off the ground, but on Wednesday, Mozilla announced a third release candidate for its mobile browser. (Our First Look video gives an overview of RC2, the previous version.) Once code-named Fennec, Firefox 1.0 for Nokia's Maemo platform is achingly close.

Or is it? Firefox for Maemo 1.0 RC3 may signal that we're one step closer to getting a full-fledged Firefox browser on a mobile device, but the app has also taken a step back since RC2 emerged two weeks ago, shedding support for the Adobe Flash plug-in that Mozilla said in a blog post "degraded the performance of the browser to the point where it didn't meet our standards."

The plug-in is not the same as an extension or add-on, Mozilla stresses. Support for extensions like Weave remain intact in Firefox for Maemo 1.0 RC3. Mozilla does go on to point out that power testers can still manually turn on experimental plug-in support using about:config.

The third Firefox release candidate does fix some performance bugs and should reduce the amount of crashing that testers have noticed. You can download Firefox for Maemo RC3 for the Nokia N900 or N810 Internet tablet, though if RC2 is already installed, expect Mozilla's automatic update.

Mozilla hasn't told us when to expect the general Firefox release, but at this point we'd rather see a fourth release candidate--or a different solution to the feeble Flash problem (perhaps extensions, as Mozilla's Mobile director Stuart Parmenter mentioned--than see Mozilla rush to complete Firefox before it's truly ready for the public, and for its voracious consumption of Flash sites.

Today's Apple event obviously had the new iPad (latest news, screenshots, and specs here) as its main focus, but there were also hints of new software releases optimized for the iPad. We saw the unveiling of iBooks, a book reading software connected to Amazon for book downloading and reading on the nearly 10-inch touch-screen interface. But Apple had another software surprise as well, with downloadable iWork apps made specifically for the iPad interface.

During the presentation, Steve Jobs demonstrated new iWork apps optimized for the iPad's unique interface. All three of the main iWork apps will be available as separate purchases, including Pages (word processing), Numbers (spreadsheets), and Keynote (presentations). Apple will charge $9.99 for each iWork app on the iPad. These should become available once the iPad is ready to launch, which is in 60 days for the Wi-Fi-only (non-3G) iPads.

According to Apple, the new iWork app versions will add new touch-screen features including new menu overlays, new gestures, and new ways of working on your projects. We saw them quickly demo Keynote, using touch-screen gestures to organize slides and set up smooth presentations. Pages lets you use the touch screen to design your page layouts and drag and drop images into your project with autoformatting so your text wraps around the image. With Numbers, they showed how to create spreadsheets with touch input, including resizing columns using the "pinch" and drag gestures, and quickly adding rows using an overlay menu. A pop-up calculator will make it easy to edit formulas within fields all on your iPad's touch screen.

There have been mixed reviews so far for the iPad based on the presentation, but the addition of touch-screen compatible iWork apps will be a big advantage to those who use their iPad to work on the go. As more news materializes in the coming days and weeks, we expect to see many more apps optimized for Apple's latest device. We hope we'll see more Apple software like GarageBand and other useful apps land on the iPad as we get closer to release.

What do you think? What apps would you like to see for Apple's new iPad? Do you think you will be purchasing an iPad when they come out? Let me know in the comments!

We only got a glimpse of Apple's new iBooks app when CEO Steve Jobs demoed it at the January 27, 2010 Apple event in San Francisco. What we saw was a stylish, crisp-looking, colorful e-book reader and storefront that will run on Apple's forthcoming iPad. Since the iPad will share the content (and layout) of the App Store, iBooks should presumably be available for the iPhone and iPod Touch as well.

Steve Jobs hinted in Wednesday's keynote that iBooks should be available later in the day, so we've got high hopes we'll be able to give our hands-on take soon. In the meantime, here's what we think so far.

As with other e-book readers (like Stanza,) iBooks will respond to the device's accelerometer and switch between landscape and portrait modes. Its controls will disappear when unused, and a swipe (or tap on the left or right side of the screen) will cause the pages to turn. iBooks' page turning looks smoother and more engaging than Stanza's, with page corners digitally curling toward you as you advance, but this is hardly different behavior than what you'd find in other digital readers. IBooks will also include a progress bar to show how far you are along in a book, and you'll be able to change the reader's font size.

Stylistically, we already prefer iBooks to the bland Kindle app for iPhone, which shoots you to a Web page on Safari to browse for books.

We're unsure yet about other specific features, such as bookmarking and annotating, and perhaps Web lookups for further context (but we're speculating or just plain hoping here). However, we do know that iBooks will use the ePub standard. With books and textbooks from all five major book publishers slated to stock iBooks' digital shelves (Penguin, Harper Collins, Simon and Schuster, MacMillan, and Hachette), it looks like the content should stack up against competing apps and electronic bookstores.

Originally posted at iPhone Atlas

I've always been a fan of the "Terminator" movies, even the much-maligned third one. But having wasted considerable hours on the generally awful "Terminator" TV series, I never bothered to go see "Terminator Salvation." Just figured I'd rent it someday.

Well, I'm glad I waited. CinemaNow and Divx are offering the movie absolutely free. After downloading it, you can play it on your PC, burn it to a DVD, or watch it on any Divx-certified device (like a PlayStation 3).

To get your freebie, follow these steps:

1. Head to the "Termination Salvation" promo page.
2. Enter coupon code TS201023 and click Next.
3. Create a CinemaNow account if don't already have one, or sign in if you do.
4. Install the Divx player if you haven't already done so, otherwise click Download to start.

The download will actually take place within the Divx player, which requires you to have a Divx account (also free). So, yeah, there's a bit of hoop-jumping here, but in the end you get a free download of a movie that would otherwise cost you $19.95.

Mine is downloading as we speak. It's pretty slow going, but I can verify that the coupon works. Also, you can start watching before the download is done; on my system, playback kicked in at around the 7-percent mark.

By the way, this qualifies as a "download to own" title, not a rental, so you can view it as many times as you want.

Originally posted at The Cheapskate