Weekly Digest - 2020.03

Weekly Digest - 2020.03

Samsung Galaxy S20

XDA Developers leaked the photos of the successor to Samsung's flagship phone - Galaxy S10. What's interesting, Samsung is not going to just increment the number to S11, instead they are going to jump ahead to S20. Probably Samsung is naming is based on current year.  Other visible differences are:

  • front facing camera cutout is closer to the center of screen,
  • rear camera has 4 lenses:  regular wide, an ultra-wide, portrait, and a macro,
  • body is less curved.

For the rest of the spec, we'll have to wait until February 11th.

New iPhones and iPads with faster 5G

According to Ming-Chi Kuo, this year iPhone will support both sub-6GHz 5G (slightly faster than LTE) and faster mmWave 5G (closer to WiFi transfers). Previous reports suggested only the the former, so this week rumor is a nice surprise. Of corse, it is possible that faster 5G will be available only in selected models of iPhone.  That would line up with  last week rumors,  that new iPhones might have staggered rollout.

Also, according to DigiTimes, upcoming iPads will get faster 5G as well.  Although, this feature might be limited only to iPad Pro lineup.

New MacBooks coming soon

Apple has register portable and unreleased Mac in Eurasian Economic Commission database. Common sense indicates that might be new 13-inch, or maybe even 14-inch, MacBook Pro with a scissor keyboard. Regardless, of the screen size, new Mac will be released within couple of weeks.

Windows 7 is dead

After 11 years, Microsoft is officially ending support for Windows 7. Although, users should not get any bug fixes or feature updates, Windows 7 will share the fate of Windows XP, and Microsoft will be releasing critical security updates for couple more years.

New Microsoft Edge is out

Microsoft has finally released the stable version of the Edge browser based on the Google's Chromium web browser project. New Microsoft Edge is available on both Windows and macOS.

Cyberpunk 2077 delayed

Cyberpunk 2077 has been delayed by 5 months.  In the special statement,  CD Project Red (CDPR) announced that the released date has been moved to September 17th.

Cyberpunk 2077 is one of the most anticipated games of this year, and it is not a surprise, that CDPR want to polish the game and release the best game possible. CDPR did similar move with Witcher 3, which also was delayed for 3 months and turned it to be one of the best RPGs ever. So, there is nothing to worry about, all we need to do is be patient.

SpaceX Crew Dragon Launch Escape Demonstration

On Sunday, SpaceX performed the final test of the Crew Dragon. The goal of this mission was to verify the escape mechanisms of the Crew Dragon capsule.

Less than one and half minute after Falcon's 9 launch, Crew Dragon separated from the booster. Seconds later rocket itself was destroyed. Meanwhile, Crew Dragon achieved safe distance and parachuted in the ocean.

The test looked to be successful. If the telemetry confirms that, it means that SpaceX will be in the home stretch to send first astronauts into space.

Image credits: XDA Developers

Weekly digest - 2019.49

Weekly digest - 2019.49

Apple's Best of 2019 awards

For the first time, Apple has held a special event to recognize the best apps and developers. Here are the winners:

Apple has also announced Apple Music‌ Awards with a dope trophy.

Best Android Apps of 2019

Google has also announced the most popular applications from Play Store. Unfortunately, there are only 2 categories:

MacBook Pro and iPad Pro with mini LED display

According to MIng-Chi Kuo, next year, Apple is going to release an iPad Pro and new 16' MacBook Pro with displays based on mini LED technology.

The new technology has couple of advantages:

  • more dense (thousands of light sources instead of hundreds),
  • higher brightness and  contrast ratio,
  • deeper blacks,
  • power-efficient,
  • Less prone to burn-in and won't degrade over time like OLED.

So basically the mini LED is improved equivalent of OLED. This is important because at the moment, Samsung has monopoly on production of OLED  screens. Leaning toward mini LED might mean that Apple is trying to become independent of Samsung.

16-inch MacBook Pro Popping Sound Issue

Some users of the newest 16-inch MacBook Pro started reporting issue with popping sound, when playback is stoped. Apple has acknowledge the problem and it working on fix that should be available in the future software update.

This is yet another issue with speakers in MacBook Pro lineup. In 2018, after Apple introduced refreshed model, users started reporting crackling speakers. That issue has also been solved with software update.

Future of iPhones

This week we had plenty of rumors regarding iPhones. Here is the tl;dr:

In 2020, Apple is going to release following phones:

  • 4.7-inch iPhone 9: LCD display, single-lens rear camera,
  • 5.4-inch iPhone 12: OLED display, dual-lens rear camera, with 5G support
  • 6.1-inch iPhone 12: OLED display, dual-lens rear camera, with 5G support
  • 6.1-inch iPhone 12 Pro: OLED display, triple-lens rear camera, 5G support
  • 6.7-inch iPhone 12 Pro Max: OLED display, triple-lens rear camera, 5G support.

In 2021, Apple will introduce:

  • 5.5 or 6.1-inch iPhone SE/9 Plus: full screen design with TouchID,
  • highest model without Lightning port, it will be completely wireless device.

It is worth noting that, iPhone SE 2 will be called iPhone 9.

In 2020, the iPhone Pro will get bigger screen, and I don't like that. The current 5.9-inch model is perfect for me, where 6.1-inch is a little bit too big 😞.

Regarding completely wireless iPhone, I'm not sure we are ready for this. This is big commitment, people will need wireless headphones, chargers and the rest of accessories. Although, I'm using wireless headphones for couple of years now, as a developer, I'm not ready to give up wired charging and debugging. I hope this will be just one "experimental" model, to see how people would react, and to allow the rest of manufacturers to create wireless accessories.

Image credits: Apple

Weekly digest - 2019.45

Weekly digest - 2019.45

Photoshop for iPad

Almost a year after it was first announced, Photoshop for the iPad has been released. And it is not just a psd viewer. It is fully featured Photoshop optimized to touch interface. Of course it doesn't have all the futures that desktop brother has, nevertheless it is one of the most powerful image editing applications for the iPad.

One other fact worth pointing out is that Adobe now have the ARM engine for the Photoshop. This might be important in the future, when Apple decide to transition from Intel to ARM processors.

Office app for iOS & Android

Microsoft launched new Office app for mobile devices. It combines Word, Excel and PowerPoint into single download. Beside from the ability to read and edit Office files, it will allow to browse documents and create a new ones using ability to scan text and tables.  

At the moment Office app is still in Beta, but soon it should replace Word, Excel and PowerPoint in the AppStores.

Image credits: Adobe

Weekly digest - 2019.33

Weekly digest - 2019.33

iPhone 11 Pro?

New rumors has surfaced indicating that new iPhone with triple-lens camera might get a "Pro" suffix. Now the question is whether both high-end iPhones (XS & XS Max) will get triple-lens camera. My guess is no. Simpler camera on the successor of the iPhone XS will allow Apple to address the high price, which is currently the biggest problem of the current lineup. If Apple took this approach, the next iPhone lineup would look like this:

  • iPhone 11R
  • iPhone 11
  • iPhone 11 Pro

Are those rumors true? We will see in a month.

Triple-lens camera on iPad Pro?

We know that the triple-lens camera will be, at least, in one iPhone. According to this rumors new iPad Pros should get such camera as well. This is interesting news. iPads are not used as a photo device as much as iPhones and such powerful camera doesn't make sense at the first glance. But triple-lens camera can read much more information about the depth, which is super useful for Augmented Reality. If those rumors are true and my thinking is correct, we might see some cool AR stuff from Apple in the future.

Obi-Wan TV Series?

This week we got rumors that Evan McGregor was in talks with Disney about new TV show for Disney+. What's more interesting he supposedly already signed the contract. This would be a grate surprise for upcoming D23 expo.  Are those rumors true? I really hope so. We will see next week.

Image credits: @OnLeak

Weekly digest - 2019.12

Weekly digest - 2019.12

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