Stack Overflow sold

Stack Overflow has been sold for $1.8 billion to the tech investor Prosus. Stack Overflow is the most popular website for developer in the world. Its resources are invaluable and available to everyone for free. Hopefully with new investor nothing will change in that matter

Apple's unrealized plans

The trial battle between Apple and Epic gave us insight into the inner-workings of the Apple. One of the sources of information are internal emails. One email in particular is very interesting because it's an agenda for a Steve Jobs' meeting from August 2007. Back the Apple was working on some unreleased products:

• 15-inch MacBook Air,
• Mac tablet,
• new iPod shuffle.

The 15-inch version of the MacBook Air has never been released or even rumored. The Mac Tablet is probably the iPad, which was released 3 years later. And the last, the iPod shuffle has never actually got an update.

Windows 11 is coming?

It looks like a new version of Windows is on the way. Microsoft announced a Windows event for June 24th. Software giant has been teasing this for a while, and it looks like it will be the biggest update in a decade. Recently Microsoft has been added  small, but cool features to the Windows, so hopefully the new version will follow this pattern.

macOS turns 20

20 years ago Apple introduced the Mac OS X 10.0 Cheetah. It was, in someways, a limited operating system. But back then, it was just a foundation for things that came later. Apple based MacOS X  on UNIX, which later became a foundation for iOS and the rest is the history. With Cheetah Apple also introduced the classic Aqua interface. Aqua evolved throughout a years, especially in Mac OS 10.5 and recently in Big Sur, but the core functionality remained the same.  And that shows you how good the Cheetah was back then. Last year Apple introduced macOS 11, which will bring us to the new era of the macOS family.

Microsoft buys Discord?

The are rumors that Microsoft plans to buy an online communicator Discord. The accusation is supposedly valued more than $10 billion. This is interesting move from Microsoft because they already have Skype and Teams.  Since last year, Microsoft heavily invested in the latter, where the Skype felt behind. The question is whether Microsoft is going to invest into Discord or will it slowly die because of lack of any development?

Visual overhaul of Windows

Microsoft started refreshing the UI of the Windows. They started with the icons.

This is a first part of the Sun Valley project, that is going to rejuvenate Windows.

Spotify refreshed

Spotify released a new versions of the app for Desktop and the Web. The update brings a new UI that is more consistent and fell more native. Apple should take notes, because their Music app is really bad.

Image credits: Wikipedia

SpaceX's successful disaster

Space launched the Starship SN10 prototype. As in previous launches, the rocket climbed to the assumed altitude and started free falling. But this time, during the landing attempt, everything went perfectly. Starship returned from free-falling to vertical position and landed on the ground.

It is the first time Starship managed to do that, but the test was not  a complete success. A  couple of minutes after the landing, the rocket exploded. Although SN10 did not survive, Space X is making noticeable progress. So maybe the next time, the rocket will pass the entire test.

Microsoft Mesh

During the Ignite conference, Microsoft announced the AR and VR collaboration platform called Mesh. It is a collaborative platform that allows anyone to have shared virtual experiences. It's like Microsoft Teams of the future. Participants can be in the same place, even though they are not physically together. At the moment, the platform uses virtual avatars taken from the AltspaceVR social network. But in the future, people will be able to appear as themselves.

Microsoft Mesh is a super cool idea that looks like taken from a sci-fi movie, but as some people say - the future is now.

Image credits: SpaceX

Microsoft plans to replace Outlook with new Universal Client

According to Windows Central, Microsoft plans to replace all the current versions of Outlook with one, web based, universal client. This new client - codename Monarch - is based on the Outlook Web app already available available in a browser today. There is no information when the actual switch might happen.

10th years of the Mac App Store

The Mac App Store launched exactly 10 years ago, on January 6, 2011. Although it is the easiest way to install an app on the Mac, it never gained the popularity. The 30% Apple tax and not clear app review rules caused that many developers never sold their apps through the AppStore or even abandoned the AppStore.

Hopefully the new and lower Apple Tax for small businesses and upcoming investigations regarding Apple's monopoly will make the AppStore a better place for developers.

Google workers plans to unionize

A group of Google workers plan to unionize. The Alphabet Workers Union will be available to all employees and contractors that work for Google's companies. So far about 400 workers joined the union out over 130K people working for Google. The union might be small, but it is determined to solve the issues that has been reveled in recent months.

Image credits: Microsoft

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