Macs with Apple Silicon

Apple held the One more thing event that focused on new Apple Silicon for Macs.

Apple introduced a brand new M1 chip, which combines couple of  chips and controllers under one single housing:

• 5‑nanometer process,
• 16 billion transistors,
• 8-core CPU with 4 high‑performance cores and 4 high‑efficiency cores,
• Integrated  8-core GPU,
• Integrated 16-core neural engine built-in,
• Integrated and shared memory including DRAM and cache.

According to Apple, new CPU is up to 3.5x faster on the same power usage. And the GPU is twice as fast. Looking at early benchmarks, those claims might be true.

The new chip would be nothing without new hardware that uses it, so Apple announced 3 new Mac:

Mac mini

• Apple M1 chip (8-core CPU,  8-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine),
• 8 or 16GB of RAM,
• 256GB, 512GB ,  1TB or 2TB of storage,
• WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5,
• Price starting at $699.

MacBook Air

• 13.3-inch Retina Display (2560 x 1600px)
• Apple M1 chip (8-core CPU, 7 or 8-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine),
• 8 or 16GB of RAM,
• 256GB, 512GB ,  1TB or 2TB of storage,
• 2 USB 4/Thunderbolt ports,
• WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5,
• Up to 18 hours of battery life,
• Price starting at $999.

MacBook Pro 13

• 13.3-inch Retina Display (2560 x 1600px)
• Apple M1 chip (8-core CPU,  8-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine),
• 8 or 16GB of RAM,
• 256GB, 512GB ,  1TB or 2TB of storage,
• 2 USB 4/Thunderbolt ports,
• WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5,
• Up to 20 hours of battery life,
• Price starting at $1299.

macOS Big Sur released

Apple has also released the newest version of the mac operating system. I've been using it since Beta and it's rather stable, but the launch itself was far from perfect.

Xbox Series X launch

Microsoft has finally launched the next-gen console. The launch itself was rather smooth, but there were some vaping accidents 😅 Now, when the console is here, it's time for some next-gen games to be released.

Dope links

• Building a concurrency-proof token refresh flow in Combine
• On Apple's Piss-Poor Documentation
• On Apple's SwiftUI Header File Documentation
• Case Study : Virtual Studio for Twitch LiveStream
  

Image credits: Apple

November Apple Event

Apple announced their November event, which will focus on ARM based Macs. According to latest rumors, we should see a new MacBook Air as well as 13 and 16 inch MacBook Pros. Although ARM powered MacBook Air is no brainer, the release of the Pro models would be a bold move from Apple. It would mean that first generation of new processors is  (at least) as powerful as current generation of Intel ones.

Dope links

• XCFrameworks — New Format for Packaging Frameworks in iOS
• The lang attribute: browsers telling lies, telling sweet little lies
• Mediator Pattern in ASP.NET Core Applications
• Understanding Jetpack Compose - Part 1 & Part 2
• grep.app - Search across a half million git repos
• Soccer match ruined when AI-controlled camera mistakes ref’s bald head for ball

Image credits: Łukasz Łada

Introducing DualSense the New Wireless Game Controller for PlayStation5

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Xbox Series X First impressions

Austin Evans had a chance to look at the Xbox Series X. His video gave us not only a fist look at the console, but the official specifications as well:

• Custom 8 core AMD Zen 2 CPU, clocked at 3.8GHz single thread, and up to 3.6GHz for sustained multithread load,
• Custom AMD RDNA GPU, 12TFLOPS, 52 CUs at 1.825GHz,
• 16GB (GDDR6) of RAM,
• 1TB NVME SSD,
• Expandable storage: 1TB expansion card,
• External Storage: USB HDD Support,
• 4K UHD Blue-Ray Drive,
• Dimensions: 301 x 151 x 151mm.

Video also clarified the naming convention:

• Xbox - is the name of the next generation of Microsoft consoles,
• Xbox Series X - is the name of the console.

Beside Evans' video, Microsoft also published their own clips:

• Xbox Series X - Loading Times Tech Demo
• Xbox Series X - Quick Resume Tech Demo

Playstation 5 Specification

Sony (via Digital Foundry) revealed the full specification of the next console:

• Custom: 8-core AMD Zen 2 CUP clocked at 3.5GHz,
• Custom AMD RDNA GPU, 10.28 TFLOPs, 36 CUs at 2.23GHz ,
• 16GB (GDDR6) of RAM,
• 825GB SSD,
• Expandable Storage: NVMe SSD Slot,
• External Storage: USB HDD Support,
• 4K UHD Blue-Ray Drive.

Apple revealed new products

Due to coronavirus, Apple Spring event never happened and Apple just update their website/store with new hardware.

New MacBook Air

• Display: 13.3-inch LED backlit (2560 x 1600px) with True Tone,
• CPU:  from 10th generation 1.1GHz dual-core Intel Core i3 up to 1.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i7,
• GPU: Intel Iris Plus Graphics, supports up to 1 external 6K display at 6016x3384px @60Hz,
• RAM: 8GB base, 16GB maximum
• Storage: 256GB base, 2TB maximum,
• Battery:  up to 11 hours,
• Camera: 720p FaceTime HD,
• Keyboard: Magic keyboard with scissor mechanism 😁,
• Ports: Two Thunderbolt 3,
• Price: starting at $999.

New Mac mini

• CPU:  from 3.6GHz quad-core 8th-generation Intel Core i3 processor up to 3.2GHz 6-core Intel Core i7,
• GPU: Intel UHD Graphics 630, supports up to 1 external 5K display at 5120x2880px @60Hz,
• RAM: 8GB base, 64GB maximum
• Storage: 256GB base, 2TB maximum,
• Ports: Four Thunderbolt 3, Two USB 3 ports, HDMI 2.0 port Gigabit Ethernet port (configurable to 10Gb Ethernet) 3.5 mm headphone jack,
• Price: starting at $799.

New iPad Pro

• Display: 11-inch (2388 x 1668) or 12.9-inch (2732 x 2048) 120 Hz Liquid Retina Display with TrueTone
• CHIP: A12Z Bionic,
• RAM: 6GB,
• Storage: 128GB base, 1TB maximum,
• Battery:  up to 10 hours,
• Camera: 12MP Wide camera, 10MP Ultra Wide camera, 7MP depth camera,
• Audio: 5 studio-quality microphones for calls, video recording, and audio recording,
• Sensors: LiDAR Scanner (depth sensor),
• Price: starting at $799 for 11'' model, and $999 for 12.9'' model.

Magic Keyboard for iPad

Apple also announced a new keyboard for iPad with Trackpad:

• Full‑size, backlit keyboard with a scissor mechanism,
• Trackpad supports Multi‑Touch gestures and the cursor in iPadOS 13.4+,
• USB-C port for charging iPad Pro,
• Compatible iPad Pro 12.9‑inch (3rd and 4th generation) & iPad Pro 11‑inch (1st and 2nd generation).

Dope Links

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• Bootstrap 5 release date and what's new about it
• A set of over 300 free MIT-licensed high-quality SVG icons for you to use in your web projects
• I teamed up with a fellow redditor to try and make the best moon shot we could. Here is the result!
• How Much Toilet Paper?! - The Coronavirus Toilet Paper Calculator

Image credits: Microsoft

iOS 14,  iPadOS 14, watchOS 7 details leaked

Couple of details leaked about upcoming operating systems and new Apple's products:

iOS

• Over-ear headphones with AirPods feature are coming,
• iPhone SE 2 will have TouchID,
• AirTag might have removable battery,
• Home screen will get list view for the apps,
• New augmented reality app will display detail information about real objects,
• 3rd-party apps will be able to integrate their wallpapers with the system
• HomeKit will be able to change the color temperature of lights throughout a day.

iPadOS

• Smart keyboards with trackpads are in the works,
• iPad Pro might have triple camera system,
• Extended support for mouse pointers,
• New OCR system capable to detect text written with Apple Pencil

watchOS

• Sharing watch faces with friends & family,
• Watch face with tachymeter,
• Watch face with country flags,
• Photo watch face could be made not only out of single photos, but entire albums as well,
• Parental controls,
• Sleep tracking app,
• Blood oxygen tracking,
• WatchOS apps will be no longer be based on extensions.

New MacBooks

According to Ming-Chi Ku, couple of new MacBooks will be released in upcoming months:

1. 14- inch MacBook Pro and MacBook Air with Scissor Keyboards will come in second quarter,
2. MacBooks with ARM processor will come in late 2020 or early 2021.

Google Pixel 4a

New details regarding upcoming budget phone have surfaced:

• 5.8-inch (2340 x 1080) display,
• Snapdragon 730 CPU,
• 4GB or 6GB of RAM,
• Hole-punch selfie camera,
• Single 12-megapixel rear camera,
• Fingerprint sensor on the back,
• 3.5mm headphone jack,
• support for dual-sim in 6GB model,
• 3080mAh battery,
• Phone will be available in April starting  at $399.

Coronavirus vs conferences #3

This week another conferences have been affected by coronavirus:

• E3 2020 joined has been cancelled,
• Microsoft's Build 2020 has been converted to online-only event,
• WDDC 2020 will be an online experience.

Dope Links

• Drawing In SwiftUI – A Comprehensive Guide
• Integrating MapKit with SwiftUI
• Avoiding massive SwiftUI views
• How to create Activity Ring in SwiftUI
• Class-only Protocols: class or AnyObject
• Google's Swift Style Guide
• Getting started with Vue & Apollo GraphQL
• Here is what Cloudflare Workers do
• is it canceled yet?
• Re-imagining the Windows Experience

Image credits: the Hacker 34