5 important things happening in tech today

The upcoming macOS Monterrey, iOS 15, and WatchOS 8 are now available in Apple’s public beta.

Apple and Intel will be the first companies to adopt TSMC’s new 3nm semiconductor technology.

Richard Branson wants to beat Jeff Bezos to space this month, and the launch is already planned.

Google is waving goodbye to the APK app format.

Qualcomm wants to produce the best chip on the market to challenge Apple’s M1 chip.

Here is what is happening in the tech world today:

• Apple releases its public OS betas: iPhone, Mac, iPad, and Apple Watch users are now free to download the public betas of Apple’s upcoming operating systems announced at WWDC 2021 in June. The operating systems can be downloaded free of charge on Apple’s public beta website.

• Apple and Intel adopting new chip tech: The world’s biggest chip manufacturer, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), designed a 3nm chip, and Apple and Intel will be the first to adopt the new technology, having already begun their tests on the new chips. Reuters reported that the chips are expected to hit the market in the second half of next year.

• Richard Branson heading to space before Jeff Bezos: Virgin Galactic has announced that its founder, Richard Branson, will be launching into space on 11 July. Ars Technica reported that Branson will be joining a team of pilots and specialists in the company’s Unity 22 spaceship. Should the flight take place Branson will have beaten Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who will be going into space with his First Shepard spaceship on 21 July.

• Google will drop the APK app format: Android apps have been using the APK format since 2008 with the launch of Android itself. Google stated in a recent blog post that APK would be replaced by its new Android App Bundle (AAB) app format. From August this year, Android developers will have to upload new apps in the AAB format. According to Ars Technica, the reason for this change is that APK apps have to contain all the code necessary to run on any Android device due to the wide variety of Android devices. The new AAB format, first introduced in 2018, will contain “split-APKs”, with only the necessary code being downloaded according to which device the AAB app is downloaded on.

• Qualcomm wants to take on Apple’s M1 chip: Qualcomm, known for their smartphone chips that feature in both Apple and Samsung devices, is planning to challenge Apple’s M1 laptop and iMac CPU. Instead of using the ARM architecture as Apple does, the company wants to design its own chips, Reuters reported. This process could be significantly aided by two former Apple employees who now work for Qualcomm, as both of them worked on Apple’s M1 chip.

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