Photoshop for iPad

Almost a year after it was first announced, Photoshop for the iPad has been released. And it is not just a psd viewer. It is fully featured Photoshop optimized to touch interface. Of course it doesn't have all the futures that desktop brother has, nevertheless it is one of the most powerful image editing applications for the iPad.

One other fact worth pointing out is that Adobe now have the ARM engine for the Photoshop. This might be important in the future, when Apple decide to transition from Intel to ARM processors.

Office app for iOS & Android

Microsoft launched new Office app for mobile devices. It combines Word, Excel and PowerPoint into single download. Beside from the ability to read and edit Office files, it will allow to browse documents and create a new ones using ability to scan text and tables.  

At the moment Office app is still in Beta, but soon it should replace Word, Excel and PowerPoint in the AppStores.

Interesting links

• How to build a Spotify clone for iOS with AutoLayout programmatically
• 22 short tests of Combine -  Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
• Static Types in SwiftUI
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• You Don't Know JS (book series) - 1st Edition
• 10 Good Practices for Building and Maintaining Large Vue.js Projects
• DNS Record Crash Course for Web Developers
• How Figma’s multiplayer technology works
• iOS 14 Concept
  

Image credits: Adobe

AirPods Pro

Apple has officially announced the noice cancelling AirPods.  Here is quick specification:

• All new design
• Powered by H1 chip,
• Active Noise Cancellation,
• Transparency mode which allows to hear the surroundings,
• Customizable fit and seal with silicon tips in 3 sizes,
• The Ear Tip Fit Test allows to check whether we use the best tip for our ear,
• Sweat and water resistant,
• Smaller charging  case which can be charged either wirelessly (Qi charging) or using Lightning cable,
• Up to 4.5 hours of listening time,
• Up to 5 hours with Active Noise Cancellation and Transparency mode,
• Up to 3.5 hours of talk time,
• In total, about 24 hours of battery life with charging case.

AirPods Pro will be available from October 30th, starting at $249.

iOS 13.2

Together with AirPods Pro, Apple has released iOS 13.2. Here is what's new:

• Support for AirPods Pro,
• 70 new & updated emojis,
• iPhone 11 and 11 Pro gets new camera feature - Deep Fusion, which improvs indoor photos and photos taken in medium lighting,
• New privacy option that allows to share Siri and dictation recordings with Apple,
• Siri can now read received message when using AirPods or PowerBeats Pro,
• App can be deleted right from context menu after long pressing the app's icon,
• HomeKit allows to watch and store video streams from security cameras.

Newest iOS is also a source of information about newAir products:

• AirTags
• Smart Battery Cases for iPhone 11 & 11 Pro

16' MacBook Pro saga continues

Last week, we were anticipating imminent release of the new 16-inch MacBook Pro. This week report from Ming-Chi Kuo keep us in check.  According to him, the new model will be release in mid 2020.

I still think new MacBook Pro will be released together with Mac Pro, which will come this fall. Beside that, new information about the laptop has been found in macOS 10.15 Beta and it looks like the laptop is ready for production. Unless Apple is waiting for parts, like new Intel processors 🤨

Apple TV+

On November 1st, Apple launched their TV streaming service - Apple TV+. It costs $5 per month, but if you recently bought an iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple TV or Mac you will get 1 year subscription for free.

Fortunately for me, I'm in this group and I signed up for this 1 year promotion 😬 Unfortunately, Apple TV+ is lacking content. At the moment, we can only watch couple episodes from 7 series in total. We will see how Apple is going to keep customers on their platform, but so far, in terms of content, it doesn't look good. Especially if we compare it to Disney+.

Google buys Fitbit

Google has just announced that it's buying Fitbit for $2.1 billion.  The deal is similar to the accusation of Nest and Fitbit will become one of the companies under Alphabet umbrella.

I'm wondering whether Fitbit will stay in the market of smart-bands or they will try to compete with Apple with smartwatches. Right now, Apple is dominating this market, so it will be good to see some strong competition. Such competition might not be good for Apple or Google, but it definitely would be good for end customers.

Star Wars news

Last week we got The Rise of Skywalker trailer, this week we got trailer for The Mandalorian. Beside good news there are also the bad one. Because of tight schedule (at least officially), Game of Thrones showrunners, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, are no longer working on new Star Wars trilogy. This is a bummer, new trilogy was rumored to be set during the Old Republic times. But not all is lost. Maybe involvement of Kevin Feige in Star Wars franchise is reaction to GoT showrunners' departure.

Beside all of that, the Jedi: Fallen Order is coming in couple of weeks, and EA has already released the launch trailer.

Interesting links

• Dependency Heck
• Dark color
• Ahh shhgit!
• How I remade the new Star Wars poster! (photoshop)
• Planting 20,000,000 Trees Will Actually Have This Impact
• The Witcher - Main Trailer
  

Image credits: Apple

MacBook Pro 16' imminent release?

According to DigiTimes new 16-inch MacBook Pro could be released by the end of October. At the moment, there is no information about any Apple's event, so people are speculating whether Apple is going to just release new laptop model together with Mac Pro.

It looks like the rumors about imminent release might be true. In the latest beta of the macOS 10.15.1, people found images of the 16-inch MacBook. New model looks to be slightly bigger than 15-inch predecessor, and has noticeably smaller screen bezel.

Interesting links

• Create the Perfect UserDefaults Wrapper Using Property Wrapper
• Mockingbird: A convenient mocking framework for Swift
• No Overview Available
• Take a screenshot and record a video in iOS Simulator
• Using Web Bluetooth to communicate with Bluetooth devices
• Dark mode in HTML email
• My favourite Git commit
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• Bruno Simon's Portfolio

Image credits: MacGeneration

Pixel 4

Google announced, or I should say remembered us, the Pixel 4 and 4XL. Here is the spec:

• 5.7-inch display (FHD+ resolution) in Pixel 4,
• 6.3-inch display  (QHD+ resolution) in Pixel 4XL,
• 90Hz screen's refresh rate,
• Snapdragon 855  CPU,
• 6GB of  RAM,
• 64GB or 128GB of storage,
• 12.2-megapixel rear camera,
• 6-megapixel telephoto rear camera,
• 2800mAh battery in Pixel 4 and 3700mAh in 4XL,
• Face unlock and motion sense radar.

Both versions are available in "Just Black", "Clearly White" and "Oh so Orange" colors. Pixel 4 and 4 XL start at $799 and $899 respectively.

This year Google decided to focus on face and motion recognition. They removed fingerprint reader to equivalent of FaceID called "Face unlock". What's even more interesting, Google added Motion Sense radar that can detect movement around the phone. For example,  when sensors detect reaching hand, they can increase the brightness of always-on display, or silence the alarm clock. Also, user can also control the music using gestures.

iPhone SE2

Ming-Chi Kuo shared some new details regarding new iPhone SE:

• planned to be released in Q1 2020,
• pricing starting at $399,
• form factor similar to iPhone 8,
• A13 CPU (same as iPhone 11)
• 3GB of RAM,
• 64GB and 128GB of storage,
• Space Gray, Silver and Red color options.

For the first time, we have some information about the design, and the iPhone 8 size became very controversial topic. Although I like the size of iPhone 8, I'm wondering why would Apple release a new phone, with the same size, when they still selling iPhone 8?

Interesting links

• iPhone 11, iPadOS and iOS 13 for PWAs and web development
• The Ultimate Guide to In-App Purchase in iOS Application Development: Part 1
• Visual Studio for Nintendo Switch? - FUZE4 Nintendo Switch is an amazing coding app
• Pixel 4 vs. iPhone 11 Pro: A first look at camera photo samples
• Microsoft Flight Simulator In-Depth Preview
• Photorealistic storm in Unreal Engine 4

Image credits: Google

More PlayStation 5 details

Wired published an article that shares more information about next-gen console. Here is the short summary:

• It has been officially confirmed that next console will be named PlayStation 5,
• It will be available for holidays 2020,
• CPU will be based on AMD’s Ryzen line and a GPU based on Navi family,
• It has been confirmed that ray-tracing support will be hardware based
• There will be no HDD only SSD,
• There will be 4K Blu-ray player,
• PS5 will use 100-GB optical disks,
• New data structure mechanism will allow gamers to install only single-player or multiplayer campaign instead of installing the whole game,
• There will be new system that will allow to check what players can do in games and quickly join in,
• New controller will be called DualShock 5,
• New controller will have "adaptive triggers" that offer varying levels of resistance, which can be adjusted to game we play,
• The force-feedback system is now based on haptic engines instead of rumble motors,
• Next-gen controller uses a USB Type-C connector for charging.

Apple's Sleep app confirmed in a leak

The App Store screenshots for the Alarms app for Apple Watch include text that mentions the rumored Sleep app. This is another confirmation that Apple is working on it. The Sleep app supposed to come with iOS 13, but was removed before iOS 13 beta was released.

If we take in consideration that battery life in Apple Watch Series 5 is worse than in previous model, it looks like that for the Sleep tracking we will have to wait till next year. If Apple won't be able to improve battery life software-wise, then we won't see it until new version of Apple Watch is released.

Interesting links

• Indie game makers open up about the money they actually make
• The Making of “The Aviator”: Animating a Basic 3D Scene with Three.js
• How to organize your Three.js code in a cleaner way
• Vue 3 – A roundup of infos about the new version of Vue.js
• Interview with a Pornhub Web Developer
• This Is What Happens When You Re-Upload a YouTube Video 1000 Times!
• What to do when you get Sherlocked by Apple

Image credits: LetsGoDigital