Though we already knew that RIM made a whole potload of moola, Fortune reveals that the rise in popularity of BlackBerry smartphones (and apparently the fact that, the Curve outsold the iPhone during the first half of this year) contributed to RIM's 84 percent rise in profits.

Trailing behind the Canadian company on the "100 Fastest Growing Firms" list is U.S. chipmaker Sigma Designs. Apple hits at 39 on the list. [Fortune and BBC]

• "Yes, we're a couple that has fun discussing fertilizer while we walk on the beach," says Bill, who says he's looking forward to haranguing pharmaceutical companies to do more for the developing world. "Nobody gives them a hard time. That job is natural for me to do."
• Melinda's a better runner than her husband and, as well as running the Seattle Marathon, has climbed 14,000-foot Mount Rainier.
• Would Warren Buffett have given the Gates Foundation his fortune if Melinda hadn't been in charge? "I'm not sure," he replies.
• She reveals how Bill asked her out on a date after they ran into each other in the parking lot at Microsoft: "We talked a while, and then he said, 'Will you go out with me two weeks from Friday night?' I said, 'Two weeks from Friday? That's not nearly spontaneous enough for me. I don't know. Call me up closer to the day.'"
• Chez Gates, Wednesday night is family swimming night, Friday night is family movie night.
• Bono describes Melinda as playing "the straight man to his [Bill's] dark humour." Catch the full profile over at Fortune. [Fortune]

David Pogue's triplet of iPhone coverage comes in the form of his own hands on, an FAQ, and a video of the phone in his paws. From what I know, he's the only gadget journo that was allowed to film/photograph during his meeting. And it's funny. So this is the vid to watch. (And if you haven't seen it, here's our own, blog-exclusive, hands on.)

Walt Mossberg shows us why he's the highest paid tech journo ever, refusing to get sucked into the vortex of iPhone love: "I attended the iPhone launch event, and was able to use one for a little while. That's too brief an encounter to allow me to write a proper review." He did give a short preview, mentioning the same positives and potential problems the rest of us who touched it had. This is astounding, considering that this was all written in the context of a Samsung Blackjack review. By the way, I met Walt and Katie over the week, and to his credit, he didn't throttle me. A very forgiving man, considering I've photoshopped him onto more than one thonged body, when inspiration called. Cheers.

Of course, when it comes to things Apple, Levy, Author of The Perfect Thing, is the wild man on the scene.

Steven Levy's piece, called Apple Computer is Dead; Long Live Apple is not only headlined wrong, but is remarkable simply for the reason why most of his work is remarkable: Steve Jobs Talks to him. I cannot write more until Two bad jokes are made. This makes Levy a modern Moses, and when Levy calls the iPhone the Holy Trinity ("an iPod, a phone and internet communicator"), I just die thinking of how many times I can use that when speaking in reverence of the Jesus Phone. Anyhow, here's the meat: Levy reveals Steve's thinking on why Cingular ("We decided what the phone is"), why OS X on iPhone won't be open ("Cingular doesn't want to see their West Coast network go down because some application messed up."), and that real iChat isn't available, and neither is the ability to turn mp3s into ringtones, but that they are both possible. The ringtone issue sexy as hell in a legit device such as this, but fundamentally fucked unless Cingular decides to choose being cool over being rich.

Peter Lewis's piece at Fortune is called "How Apple kept its iPhone secrets". Those who follow Apple's product releases shouldn't be surprised. We all know that the Jobs and Co. have no problem keeping the loose lips from flapping. What's cool is hearing how Yahoo!, Google, Cingular employees were thrown off the track with spy-tastic techniques like 100% software development prototypes (not all that rare), and counterintelligence methods like decoy hardware models.

What other mainstream media iPhone articles have you enjoyed?–Brian Lam and Pchop by Adam Frucci-modo

All Things iPhone [Gizmodo]

The wood cabinet stands 6.5 feet tall and gives you 16 spoken fortunes and 23 printed fortunes. At $8,999.95, that's only $230 per fortune. And if you ask nicely, he can even help you find your robot best friend, Bonder. – Jason Chen

Product Page [Hammacher]

Green Fortune Plantwall [via CNET Crave]