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Look forward to many hours of frustration with Lion's Launchpad

Both of the new Macs that Apple shipped today come with the latest version of OS X: 10.7 Lion. The update brings many new features, as you’d expect of a new operating system, but there are some fundamental changes both to the user experience itself, and the way Apple has chosen to deliver the new OS. One — the lack of any physical install media — is both convenient and annoying. The other — adopting UI metaphors from the touch-only iOS — is likely to appeal to new users and upset old ones.

Download Only

The very first thing that is impossible to ignore is that Lion only exists in the ether. There are not, nor will there be, physical media carrying the installer. Instead, you have to either buy a new Mac with Lion pre-installed, or download the 3.5GB installer from the Mac App Store. [UPDATE 2011-07-21 09:49:45. Apple will sell a Lion USB thumb drive for $70, starting in August. It will still be a lot cheaper to make your own]

There are ways to make this file into bootable USB sticks and DVDs, but that’s for the nerds and sysadmins who want to install on multiple machines. For the regular customer, the installer disk is dead.

And what happens if your computer goes belly-up? Is there a recovery disk in the box? Nope. Apple gets around this by partitioning the boot drive and putting a utility called Lion Recovery onto it. When you have trouble, press Command-R when you start up and you’ll be booted into recovery mode. From there you can repair the disk, reinstall Lion or restore from a Time Machine backup.

I know what you’re thinking. What if the drive is completely dead? How do I rescue my Mac then? Well, the news is good and bad. The good is that, even if you slot in a brand-new, bare hard drive, the Mac will boot into “Internet Recovery” mode. This connects to Apple’s servers and grabs a copy of Lion Recovery, and you go from there. This works thanks to firmware installed on Lion-capable Macs bought from now on.

The bad news is that you need an Internet connection to do it, and we all know that hard drives always fail at the most inconvenient moment. The worse news is that, even if you have an Internet connection, it’s going to take a long time to download that 3.5GB installer file.

It Looks Like iOS

The other big change is the look of the OS. Apple titled it’s introduction of Lion “Back to the Mac,” signaling that many new discoveries made in iOS are being folded back into the Mac mix. Thus you’ll find Launchpad, which turns even the giant 27-inch screen of the iMac into an icon-infested home screen. Just like on your iPhone, only way harder to use.

You also get full-screen mode, allowing you to concentrate on one app at a time, again like iOS. Windows users will chuckle at this “new” feature — Microsoft’s OS defaults to full-screen windows, but it is great for certain kinds of app — photo and video editors for example. Our own Brian X Chen praises it in his Lion review, but I’m not sure how useful it will be for a blogger’s simultaneous, multi-window needs.

There are plenty of other tweaks, from Resume (which lets an app pick up where it left off last time you quit it) to Autosave, which does what you’d expect. For more details, check out Brian’s review. And if you’re not sure if your favorite apps will be compatible with Lion, check out this rather handy wiki from Roaring Apps to find out.

Lion is available now in the Mac App store for $30.

Lion Features [Apple]

Kobo powers Borders e-bookstore and e-reading apps. Now that Borders, which still holds an equity stake in Kobo, is liquidating, Kobo is doing its best to migrate Borders’ digital book customers to its platform while contending with some murky issues surrounding Borders’ minority stake.

Originally posted at News – Digital Media

Looking to spice up your myTouch 4G? Don’t move a muscle. Starting today, T-Mobile will begin taking Gingerbread out of the oven, so to speak, for a limited number of users, with the majority of owners to see it in the weeks ahead. Included in the update is the latest Swype build and compatibility with Exchange 2010 — along with fixes for Bluetooth, a more stable and responsive display, improved domestic roaming, saving from the messages inbox, and the usual “other” software improvements. The company also reminds subscribers that it’s unable to push the update manually, so you’ll just have to wait your turn. But in the meantime, you can get all those awesome cookie decorations ready. Huzzah!

Gingerbread heads to T-Mobile myTouch 4G starting today, won’t stop anytime soon originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Jul 2011 09:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The new MacBook Air comes with i5 processor, Thunderbolt and backlit keyboard.

As expected, Apple has updated the MacBook Air. The super-portable laptop has now become a serious rival to its big brother, the MacBook Pro. In fact, read the specs and you’ll wonder why you would bother to buy a Pro ever again. And if you want a white plastic MacBook, you’d better rush to your local reseller — Apple has discontinued it.

The biggest internal changes are the processor and the new Thunderbolt port. The latter replaces the Mini DisplayPort of the previous Air, duplicating its video-out functionality and adding support for the high-speed I/O protocol that Apple first added to the new iMacs. You can hardly buy Thunderbolt-compatible accessories right now, but that should change soon enough.

The processors have received a serious bump. The older Airs used 1.4-GHz and 1.8-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs. Now, you get Core i5 as standard (1.6 GHz and 1.7 GHz on the 11- and 13-inch models respectively), with an option to upgrade to a 1.8-GHz Core i7 on both models.

RAM has been bumped to 4 GB on the 13-inch, remaining at 2 GB on the 11-inch Air. Graphics on both models are now taken care of by Intel’s HD Graphics 3000 processor, instead of the Nvidia GeForce 320M used previously.

Storage remains the same, with SSDs of 64 or 128 GB on the 11-inch Air and 128 or 256 GB on the 13-incher.

And good news! The Airs now feature backlit keyboards. This sounds like a small thing, but once you’re used to light-up keys, it’s a real pain not to have them.

Finally, the new Airs ship with iOS X 10.7 Lion, which also launched today and is available n the App store as a $30 download. These Lion-ready Macs have lost the Exposé and Dashboard keys, replaced by Mission Control and Launchpad.

Why would you bother to buy a MacBook Pro? Reasons may include wanting a 15-inch screen, or a FireWire port or an optical drive. Another reason could be that you want a heavier computer, or enjoy less battery life. It’s clear the the Pro MacBooks are on their way out, destined to be the iPod Classics of Apple’s laptop line.

The new Airs are available today, from $1,000 and $1,300. The old MacBook is dead, and the Pros continue their overweight existence. For now.

MacBook Air Specs [Apple]

See Also:

• Macbook Air
• Aluminum Keyboard Disguises iPad as MacBook Air
• Hands-On With Apple’s New MacBook Airs

The MacBook drops from Apple’s Store (update: confirmed) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Jul 2011 09:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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