What Apple has done is changed "save as", into "fork a branch". This is progress, mostly.
The real end goal here is for Apple to somehow figure out a way for the average person to have the power of modern version control while still understanding it. This is a good goal, and we should laude Apple for it.
This is not how Git, a truly professional version control system, works. In Git, you start changing files on top of the master branch, then realize you don't want to commit that to master, so you fork (checkout branch) then commit your changes elsewhere. Apple has not only ignored how-many years of simple and effective computer Save As practice. It created a not-invented-here version control system... and, as usual for NIHers of complex algorithms, Apple failed badly.
That is only possible in a distributed version control system. Apple's behavior is more similar to SVN/CVS/etc. And for sure DVCS is better and the future, but modeling their functionality after a system that's been used for decades doesn't quite qualify as NIH syndrome IMO.
The real end goal here is for Apple to somehow figure out a way for the average person to have the power of modern version control while still understanding it. This is a good goal, and we should laude Apple for it.