Huawei vs USA

Google has immediately suspended all operations with Huawei on May 19th. This means that Huawei will not be able to use Google's Android on their phones and Google Play services. For now, currently sold devices will be receiving security updates, but this might change in the short future. MKBHD has explained this in his video.

This whole situation is a result of the trade ban issued by US government on China. Google is just one of the several tech companies that suspended partnership with Huawei. Intel, Qualcomm, Broadcom and Xilinx have stopped supplying Chinese company with new parts.

Huawei was one of the fastest growing tech companies in a world. Now, when they have no software and they are cut off from main suppliers, their future doesn't look that good.

MDS vulnerabilities

New procesor's vulnerabilities have been discovered. They are really bad. Both Intel and AMD processors are affected, but fixes hit mostly Intel processors. Intel losses even 5 times more performance than AMD. Phoronix run a set of benchmarks which shows about 15% performance drop on Intel processor, when AMD lost only 3%. What's even more interesting Google and Apple advise to disable Hyper-threading on Intel chips, which can cause even 40-50% performance drop.

New MacBook Pro

Apple has refreshed their MacBook Pro line. New computers can now get 9-gen of Intel's Core processors. The base model starts with a 2.6GHz, 6-core i7, which can turbo boost up to 4.5GHz. If  we need more performance, we can buy model with 8-core i9 chip with a 2.4GHz base speed, which can turbo boost up to 5.0GHz. Apple also added more options for the GPUs. The base model has Radeon Pro 560X with 4GB of GDDR5 memory. As an option we can choose the Radeon Pro Vega 16 or 20, both with 4GB of HBM2 memory.

Also new MacBooks come with 3rd generation of the butterfly keyboard. Apple updated the materials used to create butterfly mechanism. According to Apple, those changes should solve the majority of the keyboard issues, but looking at this thread from iFixit employee, the reality might be disappointing.

Keyboard Service Program for MacBooks

Apple has not only updated the keyboards, but they also updated their keyboard repair program. All MacBooks with the butterfly mechanism  will now be fully eligible for Apple’s Keyboard Service Program. All repaired MacBooks will get newest, 3rd generation keyboard.

Interesting links

• CSS can do that?
• Docker for Absolute Beginners
• The Most Expensive Lesson Of My Life: Details of SIM port hack
• iOS 13 concept by Álvaro Pabesio
• How Apple Continuously Screws Developers and Doesn’t Follow Its Own Rules
• Manipulating the YouTube Algorithm
• My Video Went Viral. Here's Why
• Can we all please stop using Medium now?
• Someone is remaking Star Wars: Rogue Squadron in Unreal Engine 4

Image credits: Dice

2019 iPhone design

Mark Gurman tweeted a photo of alleged case molds for upcoming iPhones. Those molds align with previous rumors and shows much bigger, square camera bump. The bigger bump could be justified on the next iPhone XS ans XS Max, which are suppose to get 3 rear cameras, but XR model, despite the rumors about having only 2 cameras, also has square bump, almost the same size as XS will have.

Next Star Wars movies

Last week we got confirmation of the next Star Wars trilogy. This week, Bob Iger confirmed the rumors that David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, Games of Thrones show runners, will create next movie.  I'm stoked to see next movies, but looking at the turmoil the last season of Games of Thrones created I'm also a little bit worried.

Beside this, we also got more detailed release dates:

• Part 1 - 16th December 2022
• Part 2 - 20th December 2024
• Part 3 - 18th December 2026

3rd Star Wars TV show

Bob Iger also revealed that during 3 years break from the movies we will get 3 Star Wars TV shows. So far we know about The Mandalorian and Cassian Andor series. The third one was a surprise and becomes an interesting mystery.

App Store Monopoly Lawsuit Against Apple

The U.S. Supreme Court decided to proceed with the class action lawsuit against Apple. The lawsuit was filed in 2011 by some iPhone users who believe that Apple violates federal antitrust laws by requiring apps to be sold only through  the App Store. This allows Apple to collects a 30% cut from all purchases, which leads to inflated prices of the applications.

Long story short, iPhone users believe that apps would be priced lower outside of the App Store, as Apple's 30 percent cut would not be calculated into  prices.

I have mixed filings about this. I agree that 30% cut is a big one and it didn't change since the beginning of the AppStore, but I also doubt that apps would be priced differently outside of the AppStore.  

Interesting links

• When will Starman return to Earth?
• Apollo 11 HoloLens 2 Demo | Microsoft Build 2019 | Unreal Engine
• God of War - Raising Kratos: Full Length Feature
• Reinventing God of War
• Marvel's Spider-Man: A Technical Postmortem
• How Video-Game Engines Help Create Visual Effects on Movie Sets in Real Time
• What to Expect From Marzipan
• I am a Web Dev. And I am Burnt The F#*K Out
• Node, Express, PostgreSQL, Vue 2 and GraphQL CRUD Web App
• Serverless Authentication with AWS Amplify and Vuex Modules
• You should never ever run directly against Node.js in production. Maybe.
• LEGO Stranger Things

Image credits: Mark Gurman

This week was really busy, which resulted in many news. So without further ado let's get started.

This week we had GDC 2019. As always it was packed with plenty of content for game developers, but the biggest announcement was from Google and it is going to affect not only developers but gamers as well. Google unveiled Stadia, the cloud gaming streaming service. It is the continuation of the project Stream, which allowed gamers to stream a game to the Chrome web browser. So far, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey was the only playable game, but Google assured there will be more to come thanks to the partnership with Ubisoft or Epic Games, among others.
Deep integration with YouTube will allow to play the game instantly on desktop, laptops, phones, tablets and even TV. Platform will not only sync the state of the game between our devices, but it will allow to share it with our friends, so for example they can help us to progress the level.
Also, if we are stuck, we will be able to watch, in-game, walkthrough directly from YouTube.
Google says that 25MBps connection will be enough to stream the game in 1080p 60 fps and it will scale up to 4K 60fps and even 8K in the future.
This is not the first cloud gaming service. Many have tried over recent years and all those projects failed miserably. This time Google might have a chance to succeed. They already have the necessary infrastructure, also they have one of the best engineers in the world, not to mention a lot of money to pull it off.
I'm really hyped about this project and I hope it will be available here in Poland.

One week before the their's March keynote Apple made couple of hardware announcements. This was something that never happened before. Every day, for 3 days, Apple was updating one product line. It all stated on Monday when we got refreshed iPad Air and iPad mini. Yes, iPad mini has been resurrected.
This update is more a refresh than big upgrade, but both models got latest hardware including support for first gen Apple Pencil. It's a shame that this is not the newest one, but it looks like wireless charging for the pencil would be too expensive. Also compatibility with the first gen Apple Pencil is one of the reasons why new iPads have Lightning port instead of USB-C.
The pricing remained the same, which is a nice surprise when we look back at recent price rises.

On Tuesday Apple unveiled new iMacs. This refresh was long overdue. New iMacs got new processors and GPUs. What is interesting, by default Apple is using last gen Intel i8 chips instead of i9. It looks like iMac would suffer from overheating like last year's MacBooks Pro.
Speaking of laptops, Apple cut the price on SSDs options for the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air.

On Wednesday we got new AirPods. The refreshed model got better communication chip H1 and support for Hey Siri. There is also a new case that can be charged wirelessly. The rest is the same, which is really disappointing, especially after speculations about black design and sweat and water-proof.
Hopefully rumors about new PowerBeats are true, and we finally get true wireless earbuds for active people.

Thats all for this week. And as always, if you want more here is the list of interesting things.

WatchOS 5 — Communication between iPhone and Apple Watch and vice versa on Swift

AppVenture - Simple. Swift. Guides

Vapor – Swift Choice For the Back End

Creating A Spotify-Powered App Using Nuxt.js

Write yourself a Git!

Instantly generate code from JSON

Why Do Arrays Start With Index 0?

Using the iPad Pro as my development machine

This week World Wide Web turned 30 years old :). I think when Tim Berners-Lee created first WWW site, he didn't know how much he would change the world. Today it is in the center of our life. It's not only a source of information or entertainment. We shop there, we trust our savings in electronic bank. We not only earn money over Internet, but sometimes we even trust it with our lives.
Without a doubt world would not be the same without the WWW. Let's only hope that personal agendas of the politicians won't destroy it.

This week Tesla completed their S3XY car lineup with the brand new model Y. This model is a compact SUV, but it doesn't look like one. It's basically a bigger version of Model 3. The new car will be available in 2020 with price starting at $39,000 for model with 230 miles range. The 300 miles range model will cost $49,000 and the Performance version will cost $60,000.
SUVs are one of the most popular cars out there. We will see whether the people are interested enough in the electric one to boost Tesla's position on the market.

Apple finally announced the WDDC 2019. This year, conference will take place in the first week of June (3rd - 7th) in San Jose. This year's conference should be the interesting one. Of course we will get our first glimpse at iOS 13 and macOS 15. But I think we, as developers, are all waiting for more details about project Marzipan, as well as long awaited Mac Pro and maybe even rumored new MacBook Pro.

Microsoft announced that Windows will be able uninstall broken updates. This is the good step forward, especially after issues with last October update, but I'm wondering how fast we will see reports about this tool making even more harm than good.

Thats all for this week. If you want more, here is the list of interesting things.

The iOS Dev Directory

Ralph Küpper - Running Small Microservices in Swift on Production Environment

A little thread on generating and rendering a procedural trajectory mesh

Creating the Blockade Runner Engine Look for Rogue One

Designing Star Wars: Star Wars Resistance

Someone is recreating Star Wars: Dark Forces... in Unreal Engine 4

Real-Time AR Self-Expression with Machine Learning

A JavaScript-Free Frontend

Learning React Hooks by building a game - react.games Preview

Direct uploads to AWS S3 from the browser (crazy performance boost)

10 Programming Terms in Normal Human Language

Image credits: Pixabay.

This week Samsung held its UNPACKED 2019 event, during which they presented new phones. Lets start with phones we have already anticipated, Galaxy S10 and S10+. The first model starts at $899 and have following specification:

• 6.1-inch (3040x1440) AMOLED display,
• 8nm 64-bit 2.73GHz Octa-Core Processor,
• 8GB RAM,
• 128GB or 512GB of storage,
• 10MP selfie camera,
• Triple rear camera with 12MP Telephoto and wide-angle lenses, as well as 16MP ultra wide lens,
• Fingerprint reader built into the screen,
• 3.5mm Headphone jack 😉,
• 3400mAh battery with wireless charging.

The bigger model S10+ starts at $999 with following specification:

• 6.4-inch (3040x1440) AMOLED display,
• 8nm 64-bit 2.73GHz Octa-Core Processor,
• 8GB RAM with 128GB of storage, 8GB RAM with 512GB of storage, 12GB RAM with 1TB of storage,
• Dual front camera with 10MP selfie camera and 8MP depth camera,
• Triple rear camera with 12MP Telephoto and wide-angle lenses, as well as 16MP ultra wide lens,
• Fingerprint reader built into the screen,
• 3.5mm Headphone jack,
• 4100mAh battery with wireless charging.

And that's not all. Samsung following steps of Apple, introduced the "budget" version of the phone. Galaxy S10e starts at $749 with following specification:

• 5.8-inch (2280x1080) AMOLED display,
• 8nm 64-bit 2.73GHz Octa-Core Processor,
• 6GB RAM with 128GB of storage and 8GB RAM with 256 of storage
• 10MP selfie camera,
• Dual rear camera with 12MP Telephoto and 16MP ultra wide lenses,
• Fingerprint reader built into the screen,
• 3.5mm Headphone jack,
• 3100mAh battery with wireless charging.

The biggest surprised was introduced at the end. The Samsung Galaxy Fold is the first Samsung's foldable device. Here is the specification:

• Main screen is 7.3-inch Dynamic AMOLED display (4.2:3),
• Cover screen is 4.6-inch Super AMOLED Display (4.2:3)
• Has 3 cameras:
  • Cover camera 10MP selfie,
  • Dual front camera with with 10MP selfie and 8MP depth cameras,
  • Triple rear camera with 12MP Telephoto and wide-angle lenses and 16MP ultra wide lens,
• 7nm 64-bit Octa-Core Processor,
• 12GB RAM with 512GB internal storage,
• 4380mAh battery with wireless charging.

Samsung's Galaxy Fold foldable starts at $1,980 and launches on April 2. I'm really interesting to see how this foldable device will behave in real life and can't wait to try it myself.

Now, moving on to other news. Earlier this week, we got rumors that Apple is planing to release new 16-inch MacBook Pro. All we know so far is that new mac is supposed to have a brand new design. This is interesting rumor, maybe overheating and hinge issues force Apple to change the design. I will follow this topic with great interest.

Speaking of Apple, there is another rumor saying that Apple will combine macOS and iOS by 2021. We already know that we will be able to run iOS apps on mac using project Marzipan, which should be released this year. But the more interesting part is that we have a date when this transition should be in effect, which means that around 2021 we will get macs with ARM processors.

Thats all for this week. Last but not least, here is the list of interesting things.

Don’t get clever with login forms

7 Alternatives to the <div> HTML Tag

CSS Scroll Snap — How It Really Works

You probably don’t need a single-page application

Linux Reverse Engineering CTFs for Beginners

The shady economics of ‘buy one, get one free’ deals

Image credits: Samsung.