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.

This week we also start with Apple news, rumors to be precise. We all anticipating the March event, but the question is what Apple would present. The iOS 12.2 beta unveiled a little bit of the secret. It looks like new (smaller) iPads are coming as well as new iPod touch. iPads are not a surprise but the iPod Touch is, I thought Apple has already killed iPod line.
So far we don't have any rumors regarding iPhone SE replacement, AirPower or new AirPods, except that the latter should be released in the first half of 2019.

Speaking of Apple rumors, new reports suggest that iOS 13 will get a major redesign. The last time iOS got one of those was iOS 7 and since then Apple was perfecting its clean design. I personally doubt that we will see any drastic changes in terms of graphic design, but we might get new ways to interact with the operating system. As Apple plans to combine iOS and macOS apps into one with project Marcepan we definitely will see some changes.

iFixit unveiled a new flow in MacBooks and called it Flexgate. Apparently the ribbon that connects the display with the motherboard is being pulled out when display is open, causing cables to tear over time. This issue is known to all generations of the MacBook Pros with Touch Bar. This is the design flow which Apple hasn't acknowledged yet. Which is not surprising, to fix this problem the entire display must be replaced and such repair cost about $600. Well, if this is a common problem, another law suite is waiting for Apple as well as another repair action.

That's all for this week, if you want more, here is the list of interesting things.

30th anniversary of the Macintosh

Avoiding conflicts between developers and marketers

Open source Eva icons as Vue components

Here are some super secret VS Code hacks to boost your productivity

Image credits: iFixit.

During this week I looked back on what happened this year and I decided to pick my top 3 news from each month. Here are my picks.

January

1. Bitcoin bubble burst,
2. Meltdown and Spectre discovered,
3. EA became scared of YouTubers.

February

1. SpaceX launched Falcon Heavy into space,
2. Elon Musk started selling not a Flamethrowers,
3. Apple started selling HomePods.

March

1. Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal,
2. Apple fixed buggy iPhone X ad before fixing the actual iOS 11 bug,
3. Current frequency deviations in Central Europe.

April

1. Mark Zuckerberg testified before members of Congress,
2. SpaceX reached the promised land of launching every two weeks,
3. GTA V has become the most profitable entertainment product of all time.

May

1. Google Duplex has been announced,
2. GDPR has become effective,
3. Premiere of Solo: A Star Wars Story.

June

1. Microsoft bought GitHub,
2. Apple held WWDC,
3. Apple Pay became available in Poland.

July

1. Apple updated MacBook Pros,
2. New MacBook Pros fixed keyboard but overheats,
3. Clone Wars TV series has been renewed.

August

1. Apple became first IT company to be worth 1 trillion dollars,
2. Twitter limited access to the APIs,
3. CD Project released first gameplay of the Cyberpunk 2077.

September

1. Apple unveiled iPhone XS, XR and Apple Watch 4,
2. Google was celebrating its 20th birthday,
3. iOS 12 and macOS Mojave has been released.

October

1. LucasFilm shared details about first Star Wars tv series - The Mandalorian,
2. Apple shoved new iPad Pro,
3. Google unveiled Pixel 3, a tablet and HomeHub.

November

1. Disney announced new streaming service - Disney+,
2. Stan Lee has passed away,
3. Robert Kubica returned to F1.

December

1. Microsoft announced that it's working on a new browser,
2. YouTube Rewind 2018 became the most disliked video on YouTube,
3. Google’s Home Alone ad.

That's all folks. This was an incredible year. I hope next year will be event better.
Happy New year guys and see you soon!

Image credits: Annie Spratt.

This week Stan Lee has passed away at the age 95. He lived wonderful life and left us his great legacy in form of superheroes: Spider-Man, Iron Man, Thor, Daredevil, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, The X-Men, The Hulk and The Fantastic Four.
We have lost a great visioner and storyteller, but today his creations are more popular than ever. He and his life's work will be remembered by many generations.
Rest in piece Stan Lee.

In terms of the tech news nothing special happened, so I just prepared the list of more interesting news:

• Facebook executives forced to use Android phones by Mark Zuckerberg,
• Spotify released Apple Watch app,
• Pokemon: Let's go has been release on Nintendo Switch.

As this week was pretty boring, maybe this list of cool things will be more interesting.

Gogs: a painless self-hosted Git service

web.dev - the ultimate resource for developers

What Web Can Do Today

To www or not to www – Should you use www or not in your domain?

My App Is Dead in the Water

Creating iOS 12 Shortcuts with JavaScript and Shortcuts JS

Emoji Builder

Image credits: Wikimedia.

At the beginning of this week, Apple finally released the iOS 12. The new version of the mobile operating system contains plenty new features and improvements:

• Better performance especially for displaying keyboard or opening apps,
• Better battery usage information
• Screen time - tool that allows to track how much time we spent using particular app,
• Grouped notifications - now, notification from the same app are grouped together,
• New Animiji and Memoji - I think this doesn't need explanation 😛,
• Grouped FaceTime - finally you can call multiple people,
• Improved AR capabilities including new Measure app or AR elements in the News app
• Shortcuts - tool for automating common task. With Siri this is very powerful, but so far underrated feature,
• Siri suggestions - Siri show suggest what can we do based on what are we currently doing,
• CarPlay supports third-party apps,
• Location is automatically shared with 911 and first responders,
• Do not disturb during bedtime - a new mode of the phone which will hide all notifications when we are sleeping,
• Password Manager API - this allows password managers to fill your passwords right from the keyboard without switching between apps.

This release is not revolutionary, but brings couple of long awaited improvements, so I encourage you to update your devices.

With premiere of the iOS 12, we also got a new Beta version of the next release. Of course people were looking for new leaks and they found couple of interesting thing about upcoming iPad Pro:

• No home button
• Face ID (with support for both portrait and landscape)
• No notch
• Probably USB-C port instead of lightning

If those rumors are true, then I can't wait to see new iPhone next year. Hopefully without notch and finally with USB-C.

On Tuesday, Marvel released first trailer of the Captain Marvel movie. Movie is set in 90s and tell the story of Kara Danvers, who becomes one of the most powerful superheros in Marvel universe.
Speaking of Marvel universe, Disney is planning Loki and Scarlet Witch TV shows. Also, there are rumors that Disney is planning to create more TV series for characters who don't have their own movies. If any show is created, it will be for upcoming Disney's streaming platform.
I must admit, creating a TV show in popular franchise is a great strategy for promoting the new streaming platform. Let's face it, Disney owns most of the franchises, so they have plenty of material to use. They already confirmed that there will be Star Wars TV show created by Jon Favreau.

As we are talking about Star Wars. Disney's CEO, Bog Iger, said that they are going to slow down with Star Wars franchise.
Since 2015 we had 4 movies. First two movies have been huge success, especially commercially. But last two have been disappointing, they felt rushed. They also, have been confusing for the fans because we had movies from the trilogy interspersed with with anthologies, where fans have been expecting continuation like in Marvel movies.
I love Star Wars, and I would love to see new movie every year, but if we can get movies that are better quality then I can wait.

Last but not least, here is the list of interesting things.

iOS 12: The MacStories Review

Microcopy Inspirations

Why does the Zune HD have the message “For our Princess” on the inside of the case, and why is she a princess?

Dependency Management for iOS projects with the Swift package manager

Code to go - Find up to date snippets for common JavaScript use cases

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