Weekly Digest - 2020.38

Weekly Digest - 2020.38

Apple Event

Apple held an online event and introduced couple of new things:

Apple Watch Series 6

  • It is evolution of Series 5,
  • New S6 chip and U1 chip,
  • New sensor containing Blood Oxygen Sensor With ECG,
  • Available from $399 on this Friday.

Apple Watch SE

  • Comes in 40mm & 44mm of size,
  • Retina display (without always on feature),
  • S5 chip,
  • Second-generation optical heart sensor (without ECG),
  • Available from $279 on this Friday.

Apple Fitnes+

This is another service from Apple. This one, as name suggests, focuses on fitnes and exercising. It integrates with Apple Watch, and offers guided workouts. Apple Fitness+ will be available for the iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV for $10/ month, or $80/ year.

Apple One

Apple combined all it services into bundles and called it Apple One:

  • Individual ($14.95/ month) - Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, and 50GB iCloud storage,
  • Family ($19.95 / month, shared with six family members) - ‌Apple Music‌, ‌Apple TV‌+, ‌Apple Arcade‌, and 200GB ‌iCloud‌ storage,
  • Premier ($29.95 / month, shared with six family members) - ‌Apple Music‌, ‌Apple TV‌+, ‌Apple Arcade‌, 2TB ‌iCloud‌ storage, Apple News+, and Apple Fitness+.

iPad 8th Gen

Entry level iPad finally got upgrade:

  • 10.2-inch Retina display,
  • Apple's A12 Bionic chip,
  • Supports the first-generation Apple Pencil,
  • Support Smart Keyboard
  • Starts from $329.

iPad Air

Also iPad Air got an update, and on paper it came much closer to a Pro version:

  • 10.9-Inch Retina display,
  • Apple's A14 Bionic chip,
  • Touch ID built into the power button,
  • 12-megapixel rear camera,
  • Supports the second-generation Apple Pencil,
  • Support Magic Keyboard,
  • USB-C connector,
  • Starts from $599.

PlayStation 5 launch date and pricing

During an online event, Sony finally revealed that the next-gen console will arrive on November 12 in North America, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea.  For the rest of the world it will be available from November 19th.

The PlayStation 5 will cost $499.99 for the standard version and $399.99 for the PS5 Digital Edition.

Image credits: Apple

Weekly Digest - 2020.37

Weekly Digest - 2020.37

Xbox Series S & X

Microsoft has officially confirmed Xbox Series S. It's a simplified version of the Xbox Series X. Here are the highlights:

  • Frame rate: up to 120FPS,
  • Resolution: 1440p with 4K upscaling,
  • 512GB NVME SSD,
  • No optical disc,
  • 60% smaller than Series X,
  • Price: $299,
  • Launch on November 10th, 2020.

It's a good choice for people who want new Xbox, but doesn't care about 8K and optical disc. The only downside is really small storage. 512GB is really small, especially when games can take more than 200GB of storage. Hopefully, soon Microsoft will release another version with 1TB of storage.

Regarding Xbox Series X, it will also launch on November 10th for $499. The preorders will start on September 22.

September Apple Event

Apple has announced an event that will be held on September 15th. Similar to WWDC, this event also will be digital only. According to rumors this event will focus on new iPad Air, Apple Watch Series 6. New iPhones will be announced in October or even later.

Epic vs Apple continued

In August, Epic sued Apple, couple weeks later Apple is suing Epic, asking for damages over the breach of  developer contract. In the press release they called Epic the "modern corporate Robin Hood" 😂

Apple has every legal right to do so, but I think the PR damages will cost Apple more than potential settlement with Epic.

Image credits: Microsoft

Weekly digest - 2019.41

Weekly digest - 2019.41

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.

Image credits: LetsGoDigital

Weekly digest - 2019.38

Weekly digest - 2019.38

Apple started shipping iPhone 11 & Apple Watch Series 5

Reviewers started getting their hands on newest versions of iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro and Apple Watch.  Long story short, if you want an iPhone, then buy iPhone 11, the Pro version is for photo enthusiast, or people who prefer smaller, OLED screen.

The always-on display in Apple Watch Series 5 is a good step forward, but if you own Series 4 you are good for another year.

By the way, now we have confirmation that all new iPhones have at least 4GB of memory. There are reports that the Pro versions have additional 2GB of RAM dedicated to the camera.

iOS 13.(1)

Together with new iPhones, Apple released iOS 13. Federico Viticci wrote excellent review of new operating systems. Overall iOS 13 is a good step forward, but is has many bugs and issues, which might force Apple to release iOS 13.1 earlier than usual. If the rumors are true, iOS 13 will be the shortest living version of iOS ever.

Pixel 4 event

On October 15th, Google is going to host an event related with launch of Pixel 4. To be honest, I don't know why Google even bother to do this. It's not like we already know almost everything.

Image credits: Timothy Eberly