Weekly digest - 2018.49

Weekly digest - 2018.49

Couple weeks ago I released a Halloween watch face for Apple Watch. I was more a joke, but people really liked it. Since then they asked me weather I'm going to do a Christmas watch face. I wanted to do one, but I didn't know whether I would have time or even an idea to create something cool. Fortunately, last week I found both and created this.
Originally I wanted to do something else, but it didn't look good and I would have to spend much more time on this to make it work. After this failed idea, I decided to do a watch face inspired by Christmas decorations made out of paper. Paper town and Santa plus some particle effects create a perfect combination. I'm really happy with the end result. Usually Christmas designs are fancy and festive, but I really wanted to keep it clean and simple. After all the watch face should not distract you from its main purpose, telling time.
So far people like it as well, but its to early to call is a success, that I will be able to tell after Christmas. If you want this watch face on your Apple Watch, check out this my GitHub repository.

From other news. Microsoft announced that it is working on new browser that is going to replace Edge. I have mixed feelings about this because it's just another browser that we, as developers, will have to support. On the other hand it will be based on Chromium, so maybe it will not be that bad.

Apple released the watchOS 5.1.2 with long anticipated ECG feature. It is out for couple of days now, but it's already saving lives. Well done Apple.

It took seven miles to pull over a Tesla with a seemingly asleep driver. I was actually wondering whether you can drive Tesla on autopilot when you are drunk. Fortunately you can't. Autopilot is amazing technology that improves every year, but still I don't trust it that much to let it drive the car practically without the driver.

Marvel released the trailer for upcoming Avengers 4 movie. Together with the trailer we got the full name of the movie Avengers: Endgame. I know it is just a trailer, but I'm already hyped.

And finally, here is the list of interesting things.

How to Write a Game in Under 13 Kb While Taking Care of a Baby

Measuring the "Filter Bubble": How Google is influencing what you click

Xcode file variants without targets

Watermarking photos with ImageMagick, Vapor 3 and Swift on macOS and Linux

An Introduction to Flutter: The Basics

Weekly digest - 2018.43

Weekly digest - 2018.43

Steve Troughton-Smith couple weeks ago released a repository with his custom Hermes watch face. He inspired many developers, this resulted in many amazing faces. He also inspired me. Couple years ago I saw a Mario face on Moto 360, since then I wanted to have this face on Apple Watch. This week I finally had time to play around with custom watch faces and as a result I created this. Right now this is just a prototype, but I'm already very happy with the overall result.
I would love to publish this on my GitHub, but I'm afraid that Nintendo is going to remove it, because of copyrights for Super Mario Bros assets. Right now, my plan is to create completely custom assets that will resemble the Super Mario, yet different enough that Nintendo would not pursue any legal actions.
I spent the most of this week making my various watch faces, and it was amazing. It reminds me of good old times, when as a kid I was trying to create my own simple video games. Creating custom watch faces was the most fun I've had in a long time.
Also, there is something personal in this. You are creating a face for yourself, and don't have to think about other users and theirs potential problems. I didn't realize that thinking only about my own needs might be so freeing and enjoyable.

Did you know that R in iPhone XR means nothing? If you want to learn more interesting things, please check following links.

Relative Grid Items with CSS Variables

GitHub launches Actions, its workflow automation tool

Understanding JSON Web Token Authentication

Introduction to Glitch for Node.js Apps in the Cloud

5 Open Source HTML5 Video Players for 2018

Weekly digest - 2018.23

Weekly digest - 2018.23

This week we had Apple's WWDC. It turned out that last week's predictions were almost spot on, but we had a couple of surprises. So, without further ado let's jumped into what has been announced.

iOS 12

  • New operating system will support the same hardware as iOS 11.
  • Performance of various operations has been improved. Some of the most common operations are faster from 40 up to 70 percent.
  • More integration with augmented reality. Firstly, Apple announced a new file format for augmented reality - USDZ. It will allow develop augmented reality experiences across multiple platforms.
    With new iOS we will get new app, called Measure. This app will allow users to measure real life objects like photos, tables, etc.
  • Photos will have more tools that allow users to search and share them.
  • Siri will have new tool, called shortcuts. With shortcuts we can define voice-triggered actions tailored to individual apps. This is the reason why Apple bought the Workflow last year.
  • Car Play will support third party navigation apps, which is actually a huge deal - now we will be able to run Google Maps :)
  • Do not disturbed will get a new mode - "Do Not Disturb During Bedtime", which hides all notifications till morning.
  • We will get a little bit more control over notifications. Now, we will be able to mute and disable notifications from the lock screen. Also, notifications will be grouped by app, topic or by thread.
  • New iOS will have an app that monitors phone usage. Beside telling us how much time we spent using an app it will allow to set a time limit, disabling the app when we exceed the our time allowance.
  • FaceTime will support group calls, and Messages will get new animojis as well as memojis. Memoji is an animoji that we can create yourself. I think this is the feature that will ensure that people will upgrade to iOS 12 really fast ;)
  • From various announcements, News app has got redesign and now support AR content. Also, Stocks and Voice memos have been redesigned and it will be available on iPad.
    And finally, the iBooks has been renames to Apple Books.

macOS 10.14

  • The codename is Mojave and it will be last macOS that supports 32-bit apps.
  • It will have dark mode. What is really cool is will be able to adjust the backdrop to your screen throughout the day, so your desktop can be bright during a day and dark during night.
  • Speaking of Desktop. Now, we will be able to clean it using desktop stacks, which will group all desktop files, based on file type.
  • Finder will get new view mode, called gallery. This mode is basically modern version of Cover Flow, and it is intended to browse images. Finder will also display exif details of an image and it will allow to edit images right in Quick Look.
  • Taking screenshots will now be simillar to what we have on the iOS. Also, we will get tools to capture videos.
  • macOS Mojave will get new apps: News, Voice memos, Home.
  • AppStore, finally, will be redesigned.
  • Also, Apple gave us a sneak peak of new UIKit for macOS.

watchOS 5

  • Users will be able to invite others to workout competitions.
  • watchOS will try to automatically detect workout activities.
  • Yoga and Hiking will be new supported workouts.
  • With watchOS, Apples watches can be used as Walkie-Talkie.

Those are the most important news from this year WWDC. Nothing revolutionary, but we will get solid updates for all Apple system.

This week I don't have a list of interesting things. Instead, I encourage you to watch sessions from WWDC 2018.

Weekly digest - 2018.22

Weekly digest - 2018.22

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

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