Last time I talked about possible premiere of the new MacBook Pros. One week later, Apple refreshed MacBook Pros with new processors, more RAM options, True Tone display (on some models), and new third-generation keyboard.
The basic configuration of the 15' MacBook Pro contains:

• 2.2GHz 6-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 4.1GHz, with 9MB shared L3 cache
• 16GB of 2400MHz DDR4
• Radeon Pro 555X with 4GB of GDDR5
• 256GB SSD
• True Tone Retina display

and costs $2,399. The maxed out configuration has:

• 2.9GHz 6-core Intel Core i9, Turbo Boost up to 4.8GHz, with 12MB shared L3 cache
• 32GB of 2400MHz DDR4
• Radeon Pro 560X with 4GB of GDDR5
• 4TB SSD
• True Tone Retina display

and costs stunning $6,699. Without a doubt the specifications are impressive, but we will need to wait for the benchmarks, to verify whether the new laptops are as powerful as Apple claims. The last thing that remains the mystery is whether a new keyboard fixed issues of its predecessor. Apple only mentioned that the new keyboard is quieter, but latest teardown from iFixit suggest that included silicone membrane might protect against key failure.

Earlier this week, we heard the rumors that Apple plans to deploy the 1Password application to all 100,000 employees. There were also rumors that Apple is going to acquire the 1Password, which has been denied in quite specific way.
I'm using 1Password for couple of years now, and I would love to see it integrated into the operating system, but on the other hand 1Pasword is not only the macOS or iOS app, it also runs on Android and Windows. So it would be a shame to loose such a good app from those platforms.

Apple is not the only company that showed new hardware. Microsoft has presented the Surface Go, a smaller, less powerful version of the Surface Pro. New tablet features a 10-inch screen, integrated kickstand and Windows 10. Basic model that starts at $399 contains:

• Intel Pentium Gold 4415Y (1.6GHz)
• 4GB 1866MHz LPDDR3 RAM
• Intel HD 615 GPU
• Storage: 64GB eMMC
• Display: 10-inch (3:2 aspect) 1800 x 1200
• Camera: 5MP front-facing with Windows Hello, and 8MP rear auto-focus
• Up to 9 hours battery

I must admit that the price and spec are impressive. The closest competitor - iPad Pro 10' with 64GB of storage - costs $649.

I must admit, it was quite eventful week, but in the meantime, I managed to find couple of interesting articles:

REVERSE ENGINEERING WIPEOUT (PSX)

Mobile UI Design Trends In 2018

Make your app accessible for everyone

Cross Platform Mobile Apps with .NET and Uno

Building an Animated Slider 

Build VueTube: A Youtube Clone with VueJS, Webpack and Flexbox

Image credits: Apple.

The silly season continues. Let's start with news from Microsoft.
It looks like Microsoft postponed the premiere of the Andromeda device to unspecified feature.
Andromeda is a codename for foldable device that supposed to blur the line between phone, tablet and PC. It looks like the reason for this delay is that the Andromeda OS is not ready. It is disappointing to hear that we will not see probably revolutionary device in the near future. On the other hand it is good that they are not going to release unfinished product.

This week we also got rumors that Microsoft is going to release Surface Go later this year. Surface Go is a tablet device that suppose to compete with Apple's iPads. If Microsoft is going to do as good job as they did with Surface Books and Pros, they might have a really good chance to take a chunk of the market share.

As we are on topic of new hardware. Apple registered five new iPads and Macs in Eurasion Database. Previously, the new additions to the database preceded the premieres, which took place about a month later. It would be unusual for Apple to have an special event in August, last one we had 11 years ago, so we will probably see those devices in September or they will be released without any special keynote.
Regardless of the release date we are getting new hardware. The three of the new MacBooks are probably from the Pro series, where the remaining two might be the MacBook Airs. As for the iPads, we should see new iPad Pros with Face ID.

It looks like Gmail Developers and third party companies have been reading our emails. It is very similar case as with Facebook. If we allowed an application to have access to our email account, the developers of this app could read our emails.
One of the involved companies explained that humans have been reading emails only to improve machine learning algorithms. It is a common practice that’s gone largely unnoticed, because most of the people doesn't even realise how much information they provide to 3rd party companies, by providing access to an account.

Finally, here is the list of interesting things I stumbled upon this week.

Explore the world of passports by country

.NET Core Microservices – DShop

Introducing the Single Element Pattern

How I automated my job with Node.js

Starter template for a MEVN (MongoDB, Express, Vue, Node) Stack Application. (Part 1)

React Native: A retrospective from the mobile-engineering team at Udacity

WWDC 2018 for iOS developers: Siri Shortcuts

Using Step Builder Pattern in Swift

15 Years Ago, I Went Indie and Didn’t Know It.

Image credits: David Breyer.