-What's happening?
Brian Tong here, and welcome to the Apple Byte for all the good and bad inside the world of Apple.
Now, there's lots of news this week so let's get to the show.
The Taiwanese newspaper, "The Economic Times", reports that Apple is lining up suppliers for the next-gen MacBook Air that will launch in the third quarter of this year.
And that's been the typical pattern for new Apple laptop announcements.
Now, according to the report, the next
Air will receive internal performance upgrades with Intel's latest Haswell platform, but also a facelift with new external features that were not explained in any way shape reformed and the possibility of a Retina display.
We know the Retina display requires a lot more power.
So, if they can they can figure out the battery life issues, I think we'll see it.
And if they can't, well, we won't.
But, you know what they say, once you go Retina, you can't go back.
And-- alright now, Apple says that a small group of their employees'
computers were hacked recently through a vulnerability and the Java browser plug in after they visited the popular iPhone Dev SDK forum.
There were no reports of them visiting naughty sites.
Now, Apple says the infected machines were also isolated, and there was no evidence that any data left Apple, which is really a big disappointment for people just begging for any iWATCH information.
Apple didn't release a Java update for Mac OS X that includes a malware removal tool.
Now, early reports suggested the hackers who targeted Apple
were from China.
But then, investigators now believed the criminals were based in Eastern Europe instead.
You know, we're good at bootlegging and hacking, but China?
Eastern Europe?
You know, pretty much the same thing.
Now Rumor News did a Times report that Apple's supplier AU Optronics has improved their poor iPad mini display production.
They're now caught up and working on their next project, the new display for the next-gen iPad mini.
DIGITIMES said they have already began work on the new
panel, which is believed to be, and really better be, a Retina display.
You guys know what they say about Retina.
It's sharp.
Now, new data from Strategy Analytics found that Apple's iPhone5 and iPhone4s are the world's two most popular smartphones.
The numbers found that the iPhone5 shifted more than 27 million units during the holiday quarter.
The 4s is believed to have shifted more than 17 million, and the Samsung Galaxy S3 shifted more than 15 million phones.
But just because you're the most popular phone
doesn't mean you're the best phone on the market.
And, I still shouldn't have to tell you guys that the S3 is really still a better overall phone.
So, maybe you're tired of your iPhone5, and its' screen is still too small, and you use iOS 6 almost exactly like you use iOS 5. Well, you guys should give the iPhone 5-inch papercraft model a chance to see if you really want that bigger screen.
Now, the good people at Mac Rumors work with Ciccarese Design to create a really cool papercraft mock up.
You can download at the link on the screen.
And just make sure you print it to actual size.
But check this out.
All Apple has to do is scale up the current 4-inch iPhone screen to 5 inches.
The display would end up the same 1136x640 resolution.
But, its' pixels fringe would drop down at 264, which is the same as the current full-sized iPad.
Now you know, I enjoy arts and crafts, and I still want a larger screen, and really enjoy the size of the iPhone, but I just wasn't a fan of its' durability.
And there could be another threat to
Apple.
A recent Rumor report says Google plans to open its' own retail stores across United States to show off their drawing number of products.
Now Google has already set up Chrome mini stores inside of US Best Buys and retailers in the UK.
And it's an interesting move to expand its' brand even more.
And you know, we can probably expect to see Chrome books and Google's Nexus 10s, 7s and 4s, and the rest of the space will sell advertising.
Now, check this out.
A really cool segment on the BBC's children show, Blue Peter, featured Apple designer
Jony Ive, who is awarded their highest accolade, a gold badge, by the show.
It's the longest running Children's show for over 50 years and encourages kids to make things from ordinary household objects.
Ive watched it as a child.
Now, during the segment, Ive talked about the thinking that goes into naming a product.
-If we're thinking of lunchbox, we'd be really careful about not having the word 'box' already, you know, give you a bunch of ideas that could be quite narrow, because you think of a box as being square and like a
cube.
And so, we're quite careful with the words we use 'cause those can, sort of, determine the path that you go down.
-Well, that's kind of odd because I just thought he put the letter "i" in front of everything.
Alright guys, that's going to do it for this week's episode.
Email us at the Apple Byte at CNET.com, or hit me up on Twitter and we'll read some of your questions, or really, any personal comments you would like to express next week.
I'm Brian Tong.
Thanks for watching.
We'll catch you guys next time for another bite of the apple.
