Weekly Digest - 2020.42

Apple Event

Apple held their second fall event. And this is what has been announced:

iPhone 12 mini:

  • 5.4-inch OLED display (2340 x 1080 px)
  • A14 Bionic Chip
  • 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB of Storage
  • 5G support
  • Dual 12MP rear camera system:
    • Ultra Wide: ƒ/2.4 aperture and 120° field of view
    • Wide: ƒ/1.6 aperture
  • Black, white, red, blue, and green
  • Starting at $699

6.1-inch iPhone 12:

  • 6.1-inch OLED display (2532 x 1170 px)
  • A14 Bionic Chip
  • 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB of Storage
  • 5G support
  • Dual 12MP rear camera system:
    • Ultra Wide: ƒ/2.4 aperture and 120° field of view
    • Wide: ƒ/1.6 aperture
  • Black, white, red, blue, and green
  • Starting at $799

iPhone 12 Pro:

  • 6.1-inch OLED display (2532 x 1170 px)
  • A14 Bionic Chip
  • 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB of Storage
  • 5G support
  • Tripple 12MP rear camera system:
    • Ultra Wide: ƒ/2.4 aperture and 120° field of view
    • Wide: ƒ/1.6 aperture
    • Telephoto: ƒ/2.0 aperture
  • Gold, silver, graphite, and blue
  • Starting at $999

iPhone 12 Pro Max:

  • 6.7-inch OLED display (2778 x 1284 px)
  • A14 Bionic Chip
  • 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB of Storage
  • 5G support
  • Tripple 12MP rear camera system:
    • Ultra Wide: ƒ/2.4 aperture and 120° field of view
    • Wide: ƒ/1.6 aperture
    • Telephoto: ƒ/2.2 aperture
  • Gold, silver, graphite, and blue
  • Starting at $1,099

HomePod mini

Apple also announced a small version of HomePod, called HomePod mini.

It will be available in 2 colors, white and space gray, for $99.

  • Crash Reporting with MetricKit - Part 1 & Part 2
  • No, Microsoft is not rebasing Windows to Linux

Image credits: Source

Weekly Digest - 2020.39

Amazon Luna

Amazon has launched its game streaming service. It's powered by  Nvidia's GPUs and runs on Windows, which should developers easily port games. Right now, it supports over 100 games.

The launch date is still unknown, but  service will be available on PC, Mac, Fire TV. The iPhone and iPad  will get support  via web apps. An Android version planned for after launch.  The official pricing is also unknown, but early access price is set at $5.99/month.

Amazon also announced special controller that will cost $49.99 during the early access.

Epic Games vs Apple continued

Multiple developers, including Epic Games, Spotify and Basecamp,  have  formed the Coalition for App Fairness  intended to coordinate efforts to fight against Apple's monopolistic behaviors on the AppStore.

Windows XP source code leaked

The source code of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 has leaked online.

It shouldn't be a big issue for Microsoft as Windows XP is no longer supported, but system itself might still have couple of surprises, as secret macOS theme has been discovered.

Weekly Digest - 2020.35

Floating Apple Store in Singapore

Apple is planing to open another Store in Singapore. Normally, such thing wouldn't be even worth mentioning, as Apple has hundreds stores around the world. But this is the first Apple Store that floats on the water. Apple Marina Bay Sands is a giant glowing orb and will be docked on the bayfront of Singapore.

Epic won first battle against Apple

Judge decided that Apple can’t retaliate against Epic Games by terminating the Epic's  developer accounts or restricting use of Unreal Engine by developers on Apple platforms. Also, judge decided that Apple doesn't have to bring Fortnite back, as Epic deliberately violated AppStore rules.

So the first battle has been won by Epic, but this is not the only good news for them. Epic gained an ally in Microsoft. Company from Redmond asked Apple to allow Epic continue development on Unreal Engine. Unreal Engine is one the most popular game engines in the world, and cutting off the support for Apple platforms might have severe consequences for game industry.

Despite all of this, Later this week, Apple did removed Epic's account from AppStore with all its games.  What is more important Apple  listened to the judge, and left Unreal Engine's account intact.

Windows 95 is 25 years old

Microsoft Windows 95 just turned 25. It's incredible how fast it went and how much we progressed. 25 years ago you needed good PC to run it, today you can run it in a browser.

Gamescon 2020

After cancelling E3 it looked liked gamers will not get any major gaming event this year, but Gamescom organizers found a way.  They created virtual conference. Unfortunately nothing special was announced, but we got couple of cool looking trailers.

Image credits: Javan Ng

Weekly Digest - 2020.11

iOS 14,  iPadOS 14, watchOS 7 details leaked

Couple of details leaked about upcoming operating systems and new Apple's products:

iOS

iPadOS

watchOS

  • Sharing watch faces with friends & family,
  • Watch face with tachymeter,
  • Watch face with country flags,
  • Photo watch face could be made not only out of single photos, but entire albums as well,
  • Parental controls,
  • Sleep tracking app,
  • Blood oxygen tracking,
  • WatchOS apps will be no longer be based on extensions.

New MacBooks

According to Ming-Chi Ku, couple of new MacBooks will be released in upcoming months:

  1. 14- inch MacBook Pro and MacBook Air with Scissor Keyboards will come in second quarter,
  2. MacBooks with ARM processor will come in late 2020 or early 2021.

Google Pixel 4a

New details regarding upcoming budget phone have surfaced:

  • 5.8-inch (2340 x 1080) display,
  • Snapdragon 730 CPU,
  • 4GB or 6GB of RAM,
  • Hole-punch selfie camera,
  • Single 12-megapixel rear camera,
  • Fingerprint sensor on the back,
  • 3.5mm headphone jack,
  • support for dual-sim in 6GB model,
  • 3080mAh battery,
  • Phone will be available in April starting  at $399.

Coronavirus vs conferences #3

This week another conferences have been affected by coronavirus:

Image credits: the Hacker 34

Weekly Digest - 2020.08

Apple Event at the end of March?

According to German site iPhone-ticker.de, Apple is going to hold a Media Event on March 31st. At this event Apple is supposed to unveil iPhone SE2 (iPhone 9), new iPad Pro and AirTag.

Windows 10 icons redesigned

Microsoft has started rolling out new colorful app icons in Windows 10. New Icons are part of the Fluent Design that Microsoft has been working for years now.  So far Mail and Calendar apps has been updated; rest of the core apps will be refreshed over upcoming months.

Android 11 Preview

Google has released first developer preview of the Android 11. At the moment preview is available only for selected Pixel phones.

Android 11 offers new capabilities for developers, like enhancements for foldables and 5G, call-screening APIs, new media and camera capabilities, machine learning, and more.