Pixel 4

Google announced, or I should say remembered us, the Pixel 4 and 4XL. Here is the spec:

• 5.7-inch display (FHD+ resolution) in Pixel 4,
• 6.3-inch display  (QHD+ resolution) in Pixel 4XL,
• 90Hz screen's refresh rate,
• Snapdragon 855  CPU,
• 6GB of  RAM,
• 64GB or 128GB of storage,
• 12.2-megapixel rear camera,
• 6-megapixel telephoto rear camera,
• 2800mAh battery in Pixel 4 and 3700mAh in 4XL,
• Face unlock and motion sense radar.

Both versions are available in "Just Black", "Clearly White" and "Oh so Orange" colors. Pixel 4 and 4 XL start at $799 and $899 respectively.

This year Google decided to focus on face and motion recognition. They removed fingerprint reader to equivalent of FaceID called "Face unlock". What's even more interesting, Google added Motion Sense radar that can detect movement around the phone. For example,  when sensors detect reaching hand, they can increase the brightness of always-on display, or silence the alarm clock. Also, user can also control the music using gestures.

iPhone SE2

Ming-Chi Kuo shared some new details regarding new iPhone SE:

• planned to be released in Q1 2020,
• pricing starting at $399,
• form factor similar to iPhone 8,
• A13 CPU (same as iPhone 11)
• 3GB of RAM,
• 64GB and 128GB of storage,
• Space Gray, Silver and Red color options.

For the first time, we have some information about the design, and the iPhone 8 size became very controversial topic. Although I like the size of iPhone 8, I'm wondering why would Apple release a new phone, with the same size, when they still selling iPhone 8?

Interesting links

• iPhone 11, iPadOS and iOS 13 for PWAs and web development
• The Ultimate Guide to In-App Purchase in iOS Application Development: Part 1
• Visual Studio for Nintendo Switch? - FUZE4 Nintendo Switch is an amazing coding app
• Pixel 4 vs. iPhone 11 Pro: A first look at camera photo samples
• Microsoft Flight Simulator In-Depth Preview
• Photorealistic storm in Unreal Engine 4

Image credits: Google

This week I want to try a different approach to weekly digest. Instead of trying to keep it as one coherent piece, today, I will break it into separate sections. I believe this will make it more clear to see what actually happened each week and it should also make writing it easier. Those are the goals I want to verify with this little experiment.

Powerbeats Pro

One weeks after Apple's new AirPods release, Beats announced new truly wireless Powerbeats Pro. We knew they were coming, but now it is official, and we have the launch date. They are coming in May, in 20 countries, for about $250. Here are some features of the new earbuds:

• up tp 9 hours of listening time,
• Apple's H1 chip with for quick connection and hands-free “Hey Siri”,
• Sweat and watter resistant,
• Physical and programmable control buttons,
• Automatic pause and resume,
• Charging case, which work similarly to AirPods' case,
• 23% smaller and 17% lighter than its predecessor,
• Come in 4 colors: Black, Ivory, Moss and Navy.

The are a little pricey, but I'm waiting for them.
I was waiting patiently for sport version of the AirPods, but they've never come. Also, when I was fitting the AirPods, they were loose in my ears, so they would probably fall during the training. Powerbeats doesn't have this problem as they were design for athletes.
Beside the price, there is one more thing I don't like. It is the lightning jack on the charging case. I really wished Apple/Beats would finally switched to USB-C with all their products.

Visual Studio 2019

Microsoft has released the next version of its main development IDE. For me, the new IntelliSense powered by an AI is mind-blowing. Also live sharing built into the IDE looks awesome. There are many more new features and improvements, which you can check here.

Cloudflare free VPN

Cloudflare has added free VPN into its 1.1.1.1 DNS resolver app. What's interesting this is not a traditional VPN service. Usually the main reason we use VPNs it to trick websites and services into thinking wee are accessing them from a different location. That's no the case with Cloudflare’s service. Instead, the VPN works behind the scenes to increase speed and privacy.
This is different approach, but as long as it is keeping us safe I approve it.

List of interesting things

• VueSolitaire
• Super Charrio Kart
• Vue PWA example
• Vue.js Kanban Board Part I with PWA features in Part II
• How to Fix the Refresh Button When Using Service Workers
• Konami Code Fun: Adding Cheat Codes to your Website
• Libraries Used in the Top 100 iOS Apps
• 5 Tools To Speed Up Your App Development
• Why I Replaced Disqus and You Should Too
• The worst volume control UI in the world
• GDC 2019 Vault
• The Twelve-Factor App
• The first iPhone prototype: an exclusive look at Apple’s red M68
• The MacBook keyboard fiasco is way worse than Apple thinks
• Windows 10 Hero Desktop Image - Behind the Scenes
• Mathigon

Image credits: Apple.

The world is still dealing with Facebook’s scandal. This time people are even more concern because Facebook probably knows about us more than we thought. One thing is sure, this incident changed people's perception of data privacy.

Earlier this week Apple hold an education event in Chicago. This event was all about Apple's approach to education.
After watching this event I have mixed feeling. Apple claims to "reinvent" the eduction, but this approach won't change anything. Unfortunately, once again, it looks like Apple's ability to change the world died together with Steve Jobs.

And now it's time for my list of interesting articles.

Vue CLI 3: A Game Changer For Frontend Development
Vue CLI 3 is going to change the way we bootstrap Vue.js applications. This article explains why.

git log – the Good Parts
Lets face it, GUI Git clients are awesome, especially when it comes to analyzing the repository history. From this post you will learn how to do it from old plain terminal.

Progressive Web Apps on iOS are here
With iOS 11.3 we can run PWA on Apple phones and tablets. From this article you will learn what is possible to do, and what are the limitations comparing to native apps and PWA on Android.

Progressive Web Apps: Bridging the gap between web and mobile apps
If you don't know what PWA is this article is for you.

One hour of side project coding a day - UPDATE #1
Andy explains how to spend just an hour a day and finish mini side projects.

Swift 4.1 Released!
Newest version of the language is finally here.

Image credits: Apple.

In this week we mostly lived by Elon Musk's Not a Flamethrowers that were sold out withing 48 hours.

Intel presented the roadmap of how they play to fix the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities in the silicon chips.
Speaking of Spectre. Newest Windows patch allows to disable the Spectre microcode
fix.

Also after couple years of development, the Boostrap 4 has been finally released.

Last but not least, here is the list of interesting things I stumble upon this week.

2018 Developer Skills Report
HackerRank compiled a report on developer skills. There are some great insights, including: what are the developer's favorite languages and frameworks, how they get new skills, what developers want in a job.

Google doesn’t necessarily need innovation
This is follow up to the Why I left Google article.

How I review code
Code review is a controversial topic. We all should be doing it, but sometimes we
don't. There is a lot of reasons why - most common cause are deadlines, but sometimes we don't feel comfortable with it. This article explains how to do a human friendly review.

Parallel programming with Swift: Operations
Jan Olbrich explains basics of concurrency and parallel programing in Swift.

A better way to update UICollectionView data in Swift with diff framework
Dynamic content in UITableViews and UICollectionViews is quite difficult to achieve. This article explains how to do it properly.

How to get HTTPS working on your local development environment in 5 minute
Most of the websites are protected by HTTPS. If yours is not, it should be! From this article you will learn how to setup HTTPS on your local machine.

An introduction to Progressive Web Apps
Progressive Web Apps are the latest trend in mobile application development using web technologies. Flavio Copes explains the basics behind this concept.

Concepts
Concepts is sketching and design app for iOS. I don't have any drawing skills, but this app looks really impressive from UX point of view.

Image credits: Boring Company.

After busy begining of the year the last week of Junary was calm. I would even risk to say it was boring.
Cryptocurencies are still falling, but on the bright side, Space X finally performed static fire test of Falcon Heavy. Now we are waiting for launch, which is planned for 6th of February.

Beside this nothing much happend so let go stright to list of interesting articles.

Rest confusion explained
Follow up to the very popular and controversial Rest is the new SOAP article.

I am a 9-5 developer and so can you
We programmers spend to much time on coding. We love it, but we also need to know when to stop. In this article Matthew Jones explains how to reconcile private and professional life.

EA scared of youtubers
Recent events showed that gamers have enough of EA's bad practices. It looks like that EA is now scared of the opinions of prominent Youtubers.

How one person caused the price of cryptocurrencies to fall
It looks like, once again, lack of communication caused a catastrophe.

PWAs are coming to iOS 11.3: Cupertino, we have a problem
Apple added Service Workers to iOS 11.3. Those allow programmers to create Progressive Web Apps.

Why I left Google to join Grab
This article might seems to be another rant about "evil" Google, but actually it shows interesting point of view, where Google stopped to be innovative.

HTTPS explained with carrier pigeons
If you ever wonder how HTTPS works, here is human friendly explanation.

Create Guten Block Toolkit
This is zero-configuration dev-toolkit for developing WordPress Gutenberg blocks. Although it is a tool dedicated to WordPress, it has some interesting ideas that have a great chance of being adopted in other projects.

Codable enums in Swift
This article explains how to encode and decode enums with associated types.

Whopper Neutrality
This is brilliant. Burger King shows to ordinary people what is Net Neutrality.

Magnetic USB-C cable
If you're missing magsafe in new MacBooks, this is something that might interest you.

Image credits: SpaceX.