Pixel 4

Google just tweeted an image of the Pixel 4, a phone that has not been officially announced and will not ship until October. This is probably Google's answer to a lot of leaks surrounding this phone. It might be unusual, but in my opinion, it is very smart move. As people already saw the phone, they might as well see it in high definition photo.

Also there another aspect of this "leak". As you can see, the new Pixel 4 has square camera bump, almost the same as new iPhone suppose to have. I'm wondering whether Google is trying to say, hey we were first.

iPhone 2020

We didn't even get this year's iPhone, but we already have rumors about its successor. According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple is planning to release 3 models:

• High-end 5.4' with OLED display and 5G,
• High-end 6.7' with OLED display and 5G,
• Low-end 6.1' with OLED display.

It looks like the equivalent of the current iPhone XS will be downsized, where equivalent of the iPhone XS Max will be even bigger. The XR model will be untouched in terms of size, but it will gain the OLED display.

To be honest, I don't like those changes. The current size of the iPhone XS is perfect for me, and I don't want to get neither bigger or smaller phone.  

New MacBooks

The Eurasian Economic Commission database is amazing source if you want to know what companies are planing to release. This time the information about several models of portable computers from Apple have pop up.  

As 15' MacBook Pros have already been refreshed, it means that probably the 12' MacBook, MacBook Air or even 13' MacBook Pro are going to get the update.  Also, there are rumors about brand new 16' MacBook Pro, but I personally doubt we are going to see it this year.

Interesting links

• Vue 3.0: What Evan You & Chris Fritz Say You Should Expect
• Vue 3 will change Vue in a big way - Current Syntax to be deprecated - Composition functions will eventually be the only way to build Vue components
• Vue's Darkest Day
• How to Design for the Web in 2019
• Rendering SwiftUI views to HTML
• An Introduction to Flutter
• Always be closing!
• An oral history of the hamburger icon (from the people who were there)
• I turned my Tesla into a pickup truck

Image credits: Google

At the beginning of the year Apple informed investors to prepare for lower revenue. Mostly caused by lower than expected iPhone demand, especially on the Chinese market. More than the week later Apple reacted by reducing the price of the iPhone XR by $100. Furthermore, Apple brought the iPhone SE back to the store in US, also with lower price tag. Looks like Apple is trying to fix the sells issue. I really like to see lower prices of the newest phones, but I cannot understand why Apple brought back almost 3 year old phone. Hopefully Apple will learn the lesson from this iPhone flop and new models will be more affordable or will have features that will justify the price.

Apple struggles not only with iPhones, but with Macs as well. Apple sold less Mac than a year ago, but we can see that entire PC market is falling. Computers are expensive, especially Macs, and people are more keen to replace the computer with their phone or tablet. And again I believe that lower prices would help to revive this market.

Speaking of Apple, they also have some good news. DuckDuckGo started using Apple’s MapKit.js framework to display search results on the map. This is really interesting move, because DuckDuckGo’s first priority is privacy and they trusted Apple with all the search queries. Well, in the future we will see how both companies respect our privacy.

Now moving on, there was a lot of going on around Star Wars. Lets start with another cancellation of the Star Wars game. First we heard rumors that EA has canceled the Open-World game that supposed to be Uncharted in the space. Then EA ha released a statement, which basically confirms the cancellation. Well it looks like some manager at EA realized that the cannot put micro-transactions into story driver, single player game 😛.
During 6 years of having rights to Star Wars franchise, EA has released only 2 games, which has not been well received because of all the controversies around them. If I were a Disney I would be furious, because all the EA does just damages the franchise. Hopefully Disney/Lucasfilm realizes that before it will be to late.
And Lucasfilm knows how to intervene. They helped the fan film creator with a dispute between him and Disney/Warner/Chappel. The outrage among Star Wars fans have definitely been notices, so someone at Lucasfilm did the right thing and saved the film. This entire situation is really worrying. Disney, which earns billions of dollars each year, goes after a fan who is just promoting a franchise. And what's even more ironic, Lucasfilm each year is promoting and awarding the fan films.

Thats all for this week. Here is the list of interesting things.

The hole-punch display is going to be okay

Why Founders Should Start With a Website, Not a Mobile App

A Christmas Challenge — A Cinema app in just 7 days

Dart vs Swift: a comparison

Deno is the new Node?

A comprehensive introduction to Docker, Virtual Machines, and Containers

Couple weeks ago I released a Halloween watch face for Apple Watch. I was more a joke, but people really liked it. Since then they asked me weather I'm going to do a Christmas watch face. I wanted to do one, but I didn't know whether I would have time or even an idea to create something cool. Fortunately, last week I found both and created this.
Originally I wanted to do something else, but it didn't look good and I would have to spend much more time on this to make it work. After this failed idea, I decided to do a watch face inspired by Christmas decorations made out of paper. Paper town and Santa plus some particle effects create a perfect combination. I'm really happy with the end result. Usually Christmas designs are fancy and festive, but I really wanted to keep it clean and simple. After all the watch face should not distract you from its main purpose, telling time.
So far people like it as well, but its to early to call is a success, that I will be able to tell after Christmas. If you want this watch face on your Apple Watch, check out this my GitHub repository.

From other news. Microsoft announced that it is working on new browser that is going to replace Edge. I have mixed feelings about this because it's just another browser that we, as developers, will have to support. On the other hand it will be based on Chromium, so maybe it will not be that bad.

Apple released the watchOS 5.1.2 with long anticipated ECG feature. It is out for couple of days now, but it's already saving lives. Well done Apple.

It took seven miles to pull over a Tesla with a seemingly asleep driver. I was actually wondering whether you can drive Tesla on autopilot when you are drunk. Fortunately you can't. Autopilot is amazing technology that improves every year, but still I don't trust it that much to let it drive the car practically without the driver.

Marvel released the trailer for upcoming Avengers 4 movie. Together with the trailer we got the full name of the movie Avengers: Endgame. I know it is just a trailer, but I'm already hyped.

And finally, here is the list of interesting things.

How to Write a Game in Under 13 Kb While Taking Care of a Baby

Measuring the "Filter Bubble": How Google is influencing what you click

Xcode file variants without targets

Watermarking photos with ImageMagick, Vapor 3 and Swift on macOS and Linux

An Introduction to Flutter: The Basics