Weekly Digest - 2020.35

Weekly Digest - 2020.35

Floating Apple Store in Singapore

Apple is planing to open another Store in Singapore. Normally, such thing wouldn't be even worth mentioning, as Apple has hundreds stores around the world. But this is the first Apple Store that floats on the water. Apple Marina Bay Sands is a giant glowing orb and will be docked on the bayfront of Singapore.

Epic won first battle against Apple

Judge decided that Apple can’t retaliate against Epic Games by terminating the Epic's  developer accounts or restricting use of Unreal Engine by developers on Apple platforms. Also, judge decided that Apple doesn't have to bring Fortnite back, as Epic deliberately violated AppStore rules.

So the first battle has been won by Epic, but this is not the only good news for them. Epic gained an ally in Microsoft. Company from Redmond asked Apple to allow Epic continue development on Unreal Engine. Unreal Engine is one the most popular game engines in the world, and cutting off the support for Apple platforms might have severe consequences for game industry.

Despite all of this, Later this week, Apple did removed Epic's account from AppStore with all its games.  What is more important Apple  listened to the judge, and left Unreal Engine's account intact.

Windows 95 is 25 years old

Microsoft Windows 95 just turned 25. It's incredible how fast it went and how much we progressed. 25 years ago you needed good PC to run it, today you can run it in a browser.

Gamescon 2020

After cancelling E3 it looked liked gamers will not get any major gaming event this year, but Gamescom organizers found a way.  They created virtual conference. Unfortunately nothing special was announced, but we got couple of cool looking trailers.

Image credits: Javan Ng

Weekly Digest - 2020.34

Weekly Digest - 2020.34

The war continues

The conflict between Epic and Apple is escalating. Epic informed that Apple is terminating all of its developer accounts and cut Epic off from iOS and Mac development tools. Apple left 2 week notice on that matter, and is planning to terminate the accounts on August 28th, which is strange, normally account would be terminated immediately without any warning, so here is another example that not everyone is treated the same.

In a meanwhile, Epic is trying rally allies in battle against Apple.  If they succeed, they might get support from giants like: Amazon, Netflix, Spotify, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Valve.

Weekly Digest - 2020.33

Weekly Digest - 2020.33

Epic goes to war with Apple

Hours after removing Fortnite from AppStore, Epic filed a civil antitrust lawsuit against Apple. The legal complaint,  seeks to establish Apple’s App Store as a monopoly, and the civil suit is seeking injunctive relief to “allow fair competition” in mobile app distribution.

Fortnite has been also removed from Play Store and Epic filled another lawsuit agains Google as well.

Epic has a really small chances to win this lawsuit,  but  this time the company with millions of users is rebelling against Apple, so they will get attention of general public. Definitely the antitrust commissions in US and EU will notice this.

Xbox Series X will launch in November

Microsoft confirmed that the Xbox Series X will launch in November, before the holiday season. According to some rumors, the premiere is set to November 6th.

Now, that we have more or less accurate release date, all we need is the price.

Microsoft Surface Duo release date

Microsoft's first foldable mobile device will arrive on September 10th. The preorders are already available for $1,399. Surface Duo is Microsoft's first phone since Lumia. It not only has interesting design, that includes two separate screens, but also it runs Android.

Image credits: Microsoft