-What's up?
I'm Brian Tong and welcome to The Apple Byte for all the good and bad inside the world of Apple.
The iPad 2 is now on sale.
I can hear you all the way from here, squealing like little girls in line.
I'm on a plane and you'll be getting yours before I do, but we have plenty of news.
Plus, a detailed look at Mac OS X Lion for all of you and it's purty.
Now, for iPad 2 users
unwrapping their shiny new toy, this is the thinnest tablet we've seen.
But is it the fastest?
CNET was able to run SunSpider JavaScript benchmarks comparing the iPad 2 to an original iPad running iOS 4.3 and found the newest iPad runs only 1-1/2 times as fast, and that many of the speed improvement for the original come with optimization from the latest iOS.
Now, we know dual core processors will definitely be able to handle tasks for efficiently.
There's more to the product's performance than just raw power, but original iPad owners won't have to feel like they're really left to far behind.
Now, there's also new evidence in iOS 4.3 that indicates the next gen iPhone 5 will be using a dual core processor and it will be the same A5 processor used in the iPad 2.
Now, I'm glad someone else took the time to sort through all this code, but the evidence was found in the criminal file for a device code named N94AP, which is believed to be the iPhone 5.
And they better bring back those multitasking gestures that were in the developers build because why take them away?
That's a bad
apple!
All right, but could this be what the iPhone 5 might look like?
A report from MacOtakara's Chinese sources say Apple will be moving back to an all aluminum instead of glass casing back because of scratching and cracking issues that we've talked about before.
Now that the iPad 2 is here, you guys can expect to see one of these new iPhone 5 images each week until June or July.
All right, enough about mobile devices.
So many of you write me and say, "Show me more about the Mac platform."
Well, you're gonna get it with an inside peek of Lion with our favorite Asian skunk.
Hey guys, Brian Tong here with CNET.com and we're gonna show you some of the newest bells and whistles in the developer version of Mac OS X Lion in action, which is expected to come out sometime later this summer.
Plus, we're gonna also show you a lot of hidden gems that you just haven't seen.
So, let's start off with a few of the sexy ones.
First up is Launchpad, which gives you instant access to your apps iOS style.
You can change to the Launchpad view by clicking on the
icon on the dock.
You can drag apps on top of each other to create folders just like an iOS, and you can move apps around the way that you want.
Now, there's also a lot more multi-touch support in Lion, so you can pinch with 4 fingers to bring up the Launchpad display, and then spread them out to return to the desktop.
Now, this can be very fun and also very time-consuming.
Mission Control is another new feature that allows you to look at everything that is running on your Mac.
Just swipe upwards with 3 or 4 fingers, you can see your desktop, all windows
from you multiple apps grouped together, full screen apps, and spaces.
It's basically like Expose on steroids, but it's definitely one of my favorite features so far.
Now, we mentioned full screen apps, and there are a few built in to Mac OS X Lion like Mail, the Calendar app, and Safari.
You can swipe back to your desktop or to other full screen apps using 3 fingers.
But the full screen experience is a nice option, and if you don't like it, just drag your mouse to the top right-hand corner and click.
Now, let's transition into some of the new features in the Finder.
Finder windows are now rounded on every corner and you can resize the window by clicking and dragging on any of the 4 corners.
You also have a much smarter search in the Finder.
We all now Spotlight is very good for finding files or words in a file.
But if you know the type of file you're looking for, type in a filename like AIFF, then you can select to isolate the search by that specific kind of file, and then type in the name of the file you wanna find.
Another addition is viewing options in the Finder.
Now, I can still use the icon, list view, columns view, or Cover Flow view, but now, I can view my files based
on their type.
So, if I select all of my files in the revamped source list, I have the option to view them by kind and you'll see text, image, and movie files separated; or by size as well.
Now, if you're in your applications, you can view by application category, and it breaks them down into Internet, productivity, and many others.
Also on the Finder, AirDrop is a new feature in line that makes it easy to find computers on your local network, and drag and drop files over to them.
You'll find this in the left-hand source list column.
Now, Dashboard has also become its own space.
So, if you swipe to the right with all 3 fingers, all your widgets are there, and you won't have a confusing backdrop of your computer.
All right, let's jump into some specific apps.
Now, we've shown you multi-touch gestures already, but Safari also gets a few new Lion tricks.
If you tap the trackpad with 2 fingers, you'll be able to zoom into a specific text.
You can also pinch-to-zoom into an area of a webpage, and if you swipe back, left, or right with 2 fingers, you'll see a new animation that reveals the previous webpages that you've looked at.
Mail has also been completely revamped with a cleaner look and feel.
It now threads your e-mail just like on iOS devices.
Apple calls it Conversations, and related e-mails show up on a streamlined feed on the right-hand side.
You also can click on the number displayed to show the entire list of e-mails, their dates, and then directly jump into that e-mail in the conversation.
Now, inside of an e-mail, data detectors allow you to preview links without leaving the app, and you'll see new animations throughout the OS like this one when you reply to an e-mail.
Cool!
Now, in the e-mail preferences, if new view isn't really your cup of tea, you have the option to go back to the classic mail layout, and another kind of fun feature is the ability to show a contact's photo in the message list.
Touching, I know.
And let's show off one more feature called Versions.
When you're working on a document, go to file menu to "save as version".
Lion has the ability to auto-save changes to your files, so from then on, you can click on the top right-hand corner of your document and it will allow you to browse all the different versions of the file
in a "Time Machine" like view.
Then, you can restore the file if there's a previous version that you wanted, and voila, it's like magic.
All right, I know that was a lot of eye candy and information.
There are plenty of more things we could show you, but that's an overview of some of the cool new features we can expect to see in Mac OS X Lion coming out this summer.
Back to you, tiger.
Oh, you ain't lion.
All right, let's check out some more stories, shall we?
The Big A finally might be taking Apple TV a little more seriously
to get more content partners on board.
Apple TV's latest software update now supports Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound for Netflix, AirPlay support from third party apps, and best of all, it gives you access to MLB TV and NBA League Pass.
-Perfect jump!
-Oh, that was so nasty!
But, oh my goodness!
Like, if you were a flying dragon and I was like a little boy, I would totally take a ride to a magical place in the sky.
I'm done.
Now, more amazing flying mythical creatures: Concord Securities analyst says the white iPhone 4, yes that thing, will be in production this month and shipped
by April.
Apple has made changes to the fill material to solve the lamination problem and I'll believe it when I see it.
Now, onto some quick bytes, Safari 5.0.4 was released by Apple with some new improvements and security patches, but tell that to French security researches at the CanSecWest Conference who hacked a Mac in 5 seconds through security flaws in that Safari.
-[unk].
-Now, iMovie and GarageBand for the iPad are available for $4.99 a pop, so
you iPad users can get your creative juices flowing.
I probably shouldn't say juices on the show, unless it's apple juice.
And a much needed improvement comes to iOS 4.3 where users will have to re-enter their iTunes password in order to make in-app purchases, even if they just entered it in to download the app.
Now, this will hopefully prevent terrible things from happening like, you know, an 8-year-old girl racking up $1400 in purchases of Smurfberries for the Smurfs' Village game.
That-- that's the same game that my grown man younger brother plays during his free time.
All right, that's gonna do it for this week's show.
Send your e-mails to theapplebyte@cnet.com.
I'm Brian Tong.
Thanks for watching and we'll see you guys next week for another bite of the apple.
