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

Apple rolls out Apple Card

On Tuesday Apple started rolling out its Apple Card to selected users.  The new credit card is available to limited group people who signed up on Apple's website to be notified about the card. The rest of the users will get access to their Apple Card  later this month. Alongside the card, Apple also released a series of videos explaining how to set up and use the Apple Card.

New details about Disney+

Finally we learned the price of the new service. The basic trier of Disney+ will cost  $6.99 per month. Disney also announced the bundle option with: Disney+, ESPN+ and Hulu for $12.99 per month. This is quite compelling option fo US users because all those services bought separately would cost about $18.

The price seems to be reasonable. Hopefully when Disney+ comes to Europe, in 2021, the price will be on similar rate.

Interesting links

• ViewModifiers in SwiftUI
• Units in CSS (em, rem, pt, px, vw, vh, vmin, vmax, ex, ch, ...)
• 8 Tips for Dark Theme Design
• Building Microservices On .NET Core – Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5
• How I side project
• Pricing Design Work & Creativity
• Why Does Unsubscribing From a Newsletter Take a Few Days?
• Unreal Engine User Group at SIGGRAPH 2019

This week pasted mostly on discussion about future of the Twitter. On August 16th, Twitter removed streaming APIs which most of the 3rd party Twitter clients relied on. They've done that without providing any substitute, so now the 3rd party clients are missing key functionalities like real time notifications. This of course pissed a lot of people off and was interpreted as a di*k move to force user to use either web or crappy PWA clients. It also restarted the debate about future of the Twitter itself because this is not first time when Twitter has made a questionable decision. From many opinions I read, I completely agree with Sarah Perez:

Perhaps, users want a consistent experience — one that doesn’t involve a million inconsequential product changes like turning stars to hearts or changing the character counter to a circle. Maybe they appreciate the fact that the third parties seem to understand what Twitter is better than Twitter itself does: Twitter has always been about a real-time stream of information. It’s not meant to be another Facebook-style algorithmic News Feed. The third-party clients respect that. Twitter does not.

And I believe this is the core of the problem. If we look back at all the (questionable) changes that Twitter made, e.g.: algorithm driven timeline instead of chronological one, it looks like Twitter's management at all cost tries to make a clone of the Facebook. They are completely missing the point that Twitter was different idea and had different purpose.
In my opinion, if Twitter continues doing this, sooner or later, it will hit rock bottom. This is why I started looking for alternatives. Right now people are moving to Mastodon - the decentralized Twitter alternative. I joined it to see how it is going to evolve. You can find me there @mtynior.

From the other news. This week Motorola released new P30 Smartphone, which looks like iPhone X. Actually this is iPhone X, those phone are identical. Something tells me there is a lawsuit in the air...

Also this week, Lucasfilm and Disney released first trailer for upcoming TV series - Star Wars Resistance. My first impression was that it looks very cartoonish. But for now, I will not judge it. I was also skeptical after watching the first trailer of the Start Wars Rebels. And it turned out to be better than most of the Hollywood blockbusters.

Finally, here is list of interesting things.

Unreal Academy

The 2018 Game Developer Roadmap

The Productivity Stack

How to launch a side project in 10 days

GRID: A simple visual cheatsheet for CSS Grid Layout

Lessons from a small Firebase project

How to build a single page application using server-side Blazor

This week was mostly about Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal. Long story short, Cambridge had copies of private data for about 50 million Facebook users. Cambridge supposed to delete that data in 2015. What is even more interesting the Cambridge Analytica was involved in Donald Trump's presidential campaign which could influence the outcome of presidential election.
One thing is sure, Facebook will have to explain why Cambridge Analytica still had access to users data and how much Facebook actually care about user privacy.

On the bright side, the GDC 2018 took place. It is mostly about sessions, but we got a few cool technical demonstrations like Real-Time Ray Tracing Star Wars Demo or digital human performances from Siren and Andy Serkins.

Also Apple fixed buggy iPhone X ad before fixing the actual iOS 11 bug. This perfectly shows current mindset of Apple - lets fix the glitch in the ad instead of actual bug.

And finally, here is the list of interesting articles.

Designing Windows 95’s User Interface
This is really interesting paper about how Windows 95 user interface evolved and came to life. I must admit i felt nostalgic after reading it.

The most powerful tips to help you get a remote job
If you are a remote worker or you want to become one then this article is for you.

A complete introduction to Apollo, the GraphQL toolkit
GraphQL is getting more and more popular. And it looks like, it is just the matter of time that it will become more popular than REST. This article explains the basics, so if you never used GraphQL or Apollo before, you should check this out.

iOS Subscriptions are Hard
Jacob explains how to properly implement subscription mechanism in iOS app.

How to make a poster for Avengers: Infinity War in HTML and CSS
This is tutorial explains how to create cool looking website using just HTML and CSS.

The secret world of NSTimer
Nice explanation of inner workings of NSTimer.

Image credits: Facebook.