This week was boring, nothing special happened. From worth mentioning events we have:

• Xiaomi announced Mi 8, which, on the first glance, looks like a clone of iPhone X.
• Microsoft has held talks to buy GitHub.
• Valve has tried to release the Steam app to the AppStore, but Apple has rejected it.
• Solo: A Star Wars Story is not doing well at box office.

Also so this week we had plenty of rumors covering all things that we might see during Apple's WWDC:

• iOS 12 - it looks like, that in the next version of the iOS, Apple has focused on stability and performance improvements. In terms of new features, we should see new animojis, more augmented reality and hopefully improved Siri.
• macOS 10.14 - the new Mac operating system probably will be called Mojavi. It will have dark mode. Base on warnings for 32-bit apps in macOS 10.13, the new version should be 64-bit only. There was also plenty of rumors about project marzipan, which supposed to allow as to run iOS apps on macOS, but personally I doubt we will see it this year.
• watchOS 5 - there are not much rumors about this one. My only wish is to get ability to create custom faces.
• Macs - knowing that Apple is planning to release new Macs next year so I don't expect to see anything new in terms of hardware. What we might get is just small refresh of current line and maybe Apple will tease a new hardware like they did last year with iMac Pro.

Of course we will also get new developer tools, with new Xcode 10, and plenty new frameworks. Tomorrow we will see which of those rumors were true and which were just our wishful thinking.

Finally, here is a list of interesting articles:

Reconciling GraphQL and Thrift at Airbnb

Advanced Swift Debugging for UIKit

Custom UIView in Swift done right

An iOS architecture approach for UIViewController states & error management in Swift

We've updated our privacy policy. This is the sentence we've seen too many times in recent days. It is funny to see how companies comply to GDPR. Most of the companies just updated the privacy policies. Some companies have stopped providing services for EU users. An interesting approach has been taken by USA Today. They've prepared a separate version of their website for EU users. What's interesting, the EU version doesn't have any tracking and ad scripts, so the size of the site has been reduced from 5.2MB to ~500KB.
Fortunately the GDPR is finally here, all companies must to comply to new law. but it looks like some of them have not managed to do that. Google and Facebook have already been hit with a lawsuits with total fine set to about 7.6 billion euro.

This week we also had a premiere of Solo: A Star Wars Story. It is good summer blockbuster movie. If you are a Star Wars fans, you will enjoy it much more. The number of references to Expanded Universe and ester eggs is stunning. Ron Howard managed to create a fast paced and funny origin story of Han Solo and Chewbacca. Watching it, you can fell a climate of old adventure movies from 80's. In terms of acting, many people has been worried about Alden Ehrenreich. It turns out that he was really good, natural. But let be honest, the show has been stolen by Donald Glover. His portrayal of Lando was spot on.
I really enjoyed this movie and I can't want to see it again.

And here is list of interesting things.

Immersive linear algebra

Best Visual Studio Code Extensions

Adobe Photoshop Souce Code

Best iOS hacks from Twitter: March & April Edition

An iOS architecture approach for UIViewController states & error management in Swift

Last week we had F8 from Facebook, this week we got 2 more conferences - Build from Microsoft and Google IO. Microsoft focused on integrations and IoT:

• iOS and Android can sync with Windows
• Cartana and Alexa can work together
• Timeline for iOS and Android
• Microsoft will pay developers up to 95% of the revenue
• Sets and new Alt-Tab
• Kinnect brought to the cloud
• Azure IoT Edge
• Microsoft Graph
• Mixed reality comes to the workplaces
• Visual Studio Live Share Public Preview
• .NET Core 2.1 RC1
• .Net Core 3 will support Windows Desktop Applications

Next day, Google showed us:

• Android P
• New Google Assistant Voices
• Google Duplex
• Smart displays with Google Assistant
• Gmail with intelligent auto completion
• Google Maps gets social features and augmented reality
• Google photos get new editing features
• Google News
• Ability to copy text from real world objects

Now, we know what 3 of 4 biggest IT companies are up to, Apple will unveil its plans during WWDC next month.

Last week marked the 20th anniversary of the iMac. Personally I'm not a big fan of the iMac line, but without a doubt this machine changed the way how people perceive personal computers.

Speaking of Apple computers. On Friday a class action lawsuit was filed in federal court. Apple is accused of knowing about flows and defects in MacBook Pro's keyboard before it launched in 2015.
Last week we saw report about high number of keyboard failures in MacBook Pro, so this lawsuit was just a matter of time. As this "keyboard gate" is developing rapidly I will keep an eye on this matter with a great interest.

Also this week we had a premiere of the Solo: A Star Wars Story. The first reactions are positive, saying that the movie is funny. It looks like Lucasfilm did it again, even with directors swap in the middle of shooting.

As we are on the topic of Star Wars, Jon Favreau give us a couple of news about his upcoming live action TV series. It will be set about 7 years after battle of Endor. It will introduce brand new characters. The technology used for the Jungle Book and Lion King will also be used to make the TV show.

As for the interesting links, I only have one - E3 2018 conference schedule.

Image credits: Google.

Today is Star Wars day, the annual celebration of Star Wars. And now there is no better time to be Star Wars fan. Every year we get a new feature length movie. We had awesome animated show (which by the way, had better storyline and characters than some of the blockbuster movies). Not to mention we can explore the Expanded Universe from novels and comic books.
When Disney bought Lucasfilm in late 2012, and they basically reset the canon I was afraid that they gonna ruin our beloved franchise. But I also hoped that they could do the same thing what they did with Marvel franchise. Where everything is connected, and one movie leads to another.
Now, couple years later, I know they did that. Not like Marvel, only with movies. They took advantage of every medium. Books introduce us to the movies and comics fill the gaps. All of them are more or less connected with TV series.
And my fears from the past are gone. Disney and Lucasfilm not only kept the spirit of Star Wars, but they gave it a new life. I can only hope they keep going and never stop.

Image credits: BagoGames.

This week Disney announced new TV series - Star Wars Resistance. It will be animated story of young pilot - Kazuda Xiono - recruited by the Resistance. For now we don't know much about the story, beside the fact that we'll meet new trilogy characters like Poe Dameron and Captain Phasma.
The series is created by Lucasfilm Animation veterans, including Dave Filoni.
Show will have its premiere this fall.

After many years Google decided to redesign Gmail. After Google Calendar, the mail client also got the Material design.
I must admit that after years of using old Gmail, now it feels strange, but I'm sure this is something that I'll get use to.

Unboxings of Nintendo Lobo started showing up on YouTube. I must admit, after watching first announcements I was skeptical. Now, after seeing how this works behind the scenes I am really impressed. I had no idea how much ingenuity and engineering was put to create Labo experiments.

And last but not least, here is the list of interesting articles.

Here are three common ways to create your Lambda functions with AWS
Serverless becomes more and more popular. Here you will learn how to create serverless functions using AWS.

Creating a Website with Nuxt.js and WordPress REST API
From this article you will learn how to create custom CMS using Vue.js, Nuxt.js and Wordpress as a backend.

I built a screenshot API and some guy was mining cryptocurrencies with it
Good reminder that we should always protect our APIs because they can be exploited to do unusual things.

Higher Order Function and its uses in Swift 4
Here you will find overview of functional programming in Swift.

Managing UI Colours with iOS 11 Asset Catalogs
Arnold Sakhnov explains how to manage and use UIColors in iOS projects.

JavaScript ES6 — write less, do more
Short but refreshing overview of new functionality introduced in ES6.

Vue.js & Electron: The easy way
Vue-CLI 3 is here and from this post you will learn how to use it to create Electron project.

Image credits: Disney.