-What's happening?
Brian Tong here and welcome to the Apple Byte.
It's all the good and bad stuff inside the world of Apple.
We're back from Comic-Con 2011, and we were welcomed with open arms back at the office.
Plus, I brought you some goodies back with me, but 1st let's get to the show.
Now the MacBook Airs are here and our CNET benchmarks rate the new 13-inch Air as one of the best performing laptops on the market, even outdoing the 13-inch
Pro; but what could possibly top that?
Well, MacRumors reports the big A is currently working on an ultra-thin 15-inch MacBook notebook, and it's already in the late testing stages.
Apple did tell us that this was the direction they were moving forward with after the very first MacBook Air release.
The unofficial web blog claims this will be the next MacBook Pro line with a 17-inch model also in the works.
Now there's no time table for a release yet.
The last update was in late February; and even if they did update it, it would be at the
end of this year, so don't hold your breath for them any time soon until we get some more real information.
But does it make sense to completely remove the optical drive on the Pro line, and limit you to purchasing apps only through the Mac App Store so that Apple gets a larger cut on the profits?
Of course it does.
That's becoming the Apple way and you might get a sexier form factor, but that's a bad apple.
Now look at what they did to the new Mac mini.
How many people are really gonna buy that thing?
It looks like a cool shiny paperweight for 7.99.
It also looks like you won't be waiting too much longer for the next iPhone.
That's if you believe the China Times.
We have pinpointed the release to the 2nd week of September.
The reports of Apple stores reaching out to past holiday and part-time employees to help out from the middle of August to the middle of September.
The China Times also reports that the iPad 3 may be delayed until Thanksgiving because of component shortages, but I'm still saying it's not coming this year.
Apple doesn't need to release an iPad 3 just for a high res display and a little speed boost
6 months later.
It just doesn't make sense.
Now about those rumors, who can you really trust these days?
Well, 9to5Mac reports Asian case manufacturers, who've historically been on the money with unreleased Apple products, are now shopping case designs for the next gen iPhone.
The case molds point to a larger display, a larger home button and a thinner profile, and it's a similar source to the one that leaked the iPad 2 case designs.
Also up to this point, Mac OS X line seems to be a success after 1,000,000 copies were downloaded on the 1st day alone.
The #1 issue that is probably driving you crazy is the inverted scroll directions that mimic devices like the iPhone and the iPad; but if you wanna turn it off so it functions the way you're used to, just go into your system preferences, then select the mouse settings, remove the checked box, then you'll be back to what you're used to.
Now Lion also has some great features, but my personal recommendation is that if you're a high-end power user who does work with Photoshop, Final Cut Pro tools or any high-end programs, don't do the update just yet.
But if you're more of a general
user who uses the iApps and word processing, the update will be worthwhile.
There are also people who have had trouble during the upgrade process, so Apple has released a new update.
It's a patch for Mac OS 10.6.8 to fix this, and you'll probably wanna get this if you haven't already.
Alright, let's take a quick break and show you how to use one of the best features in Lion called versions.
-With Mac OS X Lion, you get auto save and versions, 2 new features that are gonna save you a
lot of trouble when it comes to editing documents.
With the auto save and versions, you don't have to worry about losing any unsaved work.
Let's open TextEdit to show you how it works.
Once you make an edit, you'll see "Edited" show up at the top bar of the file.
Click it, and you'll see a little menu.
"Lock" let's you lock the files so that no more changes can be made.
It's useful if you wanna create a template or just prevent your doc from being changed.
If it is the template, you can use "Duplicate" in this menu to quickly create and open a copy of that file.
Now,
if you're editing a document and realize you wanna get it back to the way it was when you opened it, click "Edited" and hit "Revert to Last Saved Version".
Below that option is "Browse All Versionsâ?¦" Now that auto save backs up all your changes, you can browse all versions of a document.
Click "Browse All Versionsâ?¦" to see how it works.
Right now, only a few Apple-branded apps like TextEdit and iWork support, auto save and versions, but hopefully other apps will be updated to incorporate these features.
-Thanks for that video.
-Now, in more fun news, we were away last week, so we weren't able to report about the fake Apple stores that were popping up in China that captured the look and feel a real Apple store while selling authentic Apple products.
You, Chinese people, are amazing.
Now the stores were so believable that even their own employees thought they were working for an actual Apple store.
Now, 2 of the stores have been closed and not because they're completely ripping off Apple's retail design but due to lack of proper permits.
Also
Apple might one-up the stores with one of the best Jedi mind tricks of all time.
According to a survey released by PriceGrabber, 35% of all respondents intend to purchase the iPhone 5 without seeing anything or knowing anything about the actual device.
59% of the people said battery life was the most important feature, and 46% of the respondents said 4G was an important feature, especially after few episodes ago.
We told you how many users think their iPhones already have 4G.
Alright, let's announce our giveaway for the MIC Gadget Keyboard, and the winner is Chris from Albuquerque.
He went in deep into the archives to find out some of the brands at iRocking.
He'll be receiving the awesome Bluetooth keyboard-case combo.
And since we're back from Comic-Con, we have a killer giveaway thanks to our friends at Performance Designed Products, or PDP, who also built the kick-ass Mortal Kombat arcade stick, they're hooking you guys, the Apple Byters, up with the official Captain America iPhone 4 cases like the one you see here, but you won't be able to throw it like a shield or
protect yourself.
Now, we have 5 iPhone cases for you, 3 iPod Touch cases to give away, so send us an email to the AppleByte@CNET.com with your reason why for you deserve a case; and if you beg hard enough, you might get lucky.
Alright, that's gonna do it for this week's show.
Thanks for watching, and we'll catch you guys next time for another Byte of the Apple.
