One connector to rule them all

EU lawmakers voted overwhelmingly (540-40) in favor for rules that would establish a common charger standard for mobile devices. It has not been decided which connector is the chosen one, but proposed charging ports include Micro-USB, USB-C and the Lightning connector. Looking at the already wide adoption of the USB-C, it's rather safe to say that it will be chosen. Fortunately, we won't have to wait long for the decision, the European Commission should adopt new rules by July.

Apple wants to make SMS one-time codes safer

Apple's WebKit team published a proposal to change the format of SMS one-time passcodes. The idea is to make the two-factor authentication process more secure. The proposal describes two ideas to achieve that:

1. SMS one-time passcodes would be associated with a URL. It would be achieved by simply adding the website's URL to the SMS itself,
2. Standardized format of two-factor authentication SMS code would allow applications to detect passcodes; automatically extract them, and complete the login process without further user interaction.

Here is an example of such SMS message:

011970 is your Brain Archives authentication code.
@brainarchives․com #011970

So far Apple and Google have backed the proposal.

iOS 14 to support the same iPhones as iOS 13

According to French website iPhonesoft, iOS 14 will be compatible with all iPhones supported by iOS 13,  including:

• iPhone 11,  11 Pro & 11 Pro Max,
• iPhone XS & XS Max,
• iPhone XR,
• iPhone X,
• iPhone 8 & 8 Plus,
• iPhone 7 & 7 Plus,
• iPhone 6S & 6S Plus,
• iPhone SE,
• iPod touch (7th generation).

As for the iPads, iPhonesoft informs that iOS14 will drop support for the iPad mini 4, and will support following devices:

• 12.9-inch iPad Pro,
• 11-inch iPad Pro,
• 10.5-inch iPad Pro,
• 9.7-inch iPad Pro,
• iPad 7th, 6th & 5th   generation,
• iPad mini (5th generation),
• iPad Air (3rd generation).

iPad turned 10

This week is the 10th anniversary of the original iPad announcement. iPad supposed to become the "post PC" device that would replace personal computers. 10 years later, we know it hasn't done that yet, but current generation of iPads and iPadOS is closer than ever. Although, tablets hasn't become as popular as smartphones, iPad helped Apple take over this market.

Google's new business communicator

According to report from The Information Google is working on a new communicator for workplaces, that will combine the part of GSuite functionality, like Gmail Google Drive & Hangouts.

Dope links

• Atomic property wrapper in Swift
• Translucent “Now Playing” Bar
• iOS App Security: Best Practices
• Post Mortem: App Store Outage on January 24th, 2020
• React Native is the Future of Mobile at Shopify
• Intro to PWAs and Service Workers
• Introducing Yarn 2 ! 🧶🌟
• TypeOfNaN JavaScript Quizzes
• A long list of (advanced) JavaScript questions, and their explanations ✨
• How Smashing Magazine Manages Content: Migration From WordPress To JAMstack
• Using NSwag to Generate a Vue Client for an ASP.NET Core 3.1 API
• Intrinsic Sizing In CSS
• Memory Management Reference
• Understanding The GIT Workflow
• Words Are Hard - An Essay on Communicating With Non-Programmers
• Postwoman • API request builder
• Are you unique?

Image credits: Lucian Alexe

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.

This week Apple launched Apple Pay in Poland. Customers of 9 Polish banks can add their Mastercard and Visa cards to the Wallet app. According to Polish media, the launch itself was huge success, outclassing Google Pay.
I personally started using Apple Pay almost everywhere. I also started thinking about leaving all plastic cards at home, especially when Apple Pay is more secure.

Speaking of Apple, they finally acknowledged that new MacBooks have keyboard issues.
They launched new service program for users that have issues with sticky, repeated characters or unresponsive keys. The fix is free and if someone already paid for keyboard repair will get a refund.
I'm glad that those keyboards shenanigans are over. Now, I only hope that keyboard in MacBooks will be better than current implementation.

Apple also announced that iOS 12 will automatically share caller's location with 911. This is huge and possibly can save many lives. I hope the same mechanism will be soon implemented in other countries.

We had a lot of Apple news this week, so here is the list of other interesting things:

React Native at Airbnb
This is must read for anyone interested in React Native and cross platform development!

Reconciling GraphQL and Thrift at Airbnb

Create A Live Comment Feed with Pusher and Gatsby (React + GraphQL + Node.js)

NES Emulator for Swift Playgrounds

Writing good bug reports

Advanced Swift Debugging for UIKit

Custom UIView in Swift done right

The Story Behind Susan Kare’s Iconic Design Work for Apple

How to Lose an IT Job in 10 Minutes

Google announced that is making their storage service cheaper. The Google Drive, we have right now, will become a part of the Google One.
Google One will start from a $2.99 a month plan for 200GB of storage. The 2TB option will cost $9.99 a month. This plan is really appealing, usually it costs about $20, now we'll get it for half a price. There will be no 1TB option, which is a little bit disappointing. Personally I don't need 2TB of cloud storage. The 1TB option would be more than enough, and if take the new prices it would cost about $5 which would be awesome.

Adobe announced the Starter Plan for Adobe XD. Adobe XD is great tool for designing and prototyping UIs and now it is free. With free plan we get the same tools as in premium version. Of course the are limits, and those comes to the number of prototypes we can work at a time. Free users can work on only one shared project at a time.
I personally think this is great. Now, with integration with Sketch and Photoshop and free tier, it became a product that we should keep an eye on.

Tapbots released a new version of TweetBoot. Tweetbot 3 for Mac is a brand new iteration of one of the best - if not the best - Twitter clients out there. The new version is not a revolution, but it comes with nice features like new sidebar, new media player and night mode. This looks like a solid update so I highly recommend getting one, especially if you haven't used Tweetbot before.

Vapor 3.0.0 has been released. Vapor is a web framework written in Swift. Maybe it's not the most popular framework out there, but it is the best tool if you want to create highly performant backend in Swift.

And here is the list of interesting articles.

Blockchain is not only crappy technology but a bad vision for the future

Clean iOS Localizable Files

Tables & Collections with type-safe declarative approach

Restful Web API using ASP.NET Core 2.0 with MSSQL (using Dapper)

A Simple Guide to ES6 Promises

Supporting React Native at Pinterest

Image credits: Google.