iPhone Air

Exactly a month ago, I switched my phone from my adored iPhone 12 Mini to the new iPhone Air. In that month, I have been surprised by the iPhone Air in good ways and bad.

I held onto my 12 Mini because I really didn’t want to give up the size, weight and form that it offered. It was a joy to use case-less and single-handed. Those years made me realize that I care about how the phone feels in my hand, and kept dissuading me from buying a new iPhone for almost 3 years (I copped out of a 16 Pro purchase at the Apple Store last year!).

I didn’t consider buying the iPhone Air until ~2 weeks before the launch. It was time to buy a new phone (my 12 Mini was starting to choke on most daily use), and was pretty confident I’d go the route of the beautiful orange 17 Pro. But just as I was catching up on the rumors before the announcement, I started entertaining the idea of the Air: Could Air really be a better form and function balance that my 12 Mini had been?

I decided I was buying the Air at the Apple Store, on launch day, after holding one in hand. In a month since I’ve had the Air, I am extremely pleased with my choice and am glad I bought it over the 17 Pro. Here’s a few quick notes about things I’ve reflected on, as I’ve compared the Air to 12 Mini (my previous), 15 (my work phone) and 16 Pro (my partner’s):

• Yes, this phone is ridiculously light, especially because of the weight distribution. There have been moments when my 12 Mini has felt heavier when I’ve held them one after the other.
• The screen is larger than the 15 or 16 Pro, but it handles much better than them because of how easy it is to grip around the device.
• The battery life is a non-issue, atleast with how I use my phone.
• The cameras are great. I miss the ultra-wide, every once in a while.
• Multi-year iPhone jumps remind you just how much has changed. Everything is faster, smoother, and more tuned. The year-on-year improvements stack up nicely.
• I smile at least once a day when I pick up this phone. It is a joy to hold and touch. In so many ways, it reminds me of my Jet Black iPhone 7 Plus.

Maybe Apple won’t sell this phone like hot cakes, maybe it is just a stepping stone to the iPhone Fold, but I am glad they made it.

The Paris 2024 Olympics Opening Ceremony was Spectacular

This past Friday, I watched the Paris 2024 Olympics Opening Ceremony as the flotillas of contingents sailed down the Seine to a backdrop of sunset, performers danced on bridges, the hooded man run past the Louvre and atop roofs, the Olympic torch traversed the lengths of Paris, decorated French sportspeople lit up the Olympic cauldron which flew up into a hot air balloon, and Celine Dion sang in front of a sparkling Eiffel Tower. The ceremony featured sportspeople who are at the top of their sport, being celebrated and cheered on by their counterparts and countrymen but also the rest of the world. It had couture, music, drama, drag, amd dance. It was exuberant with emotion from one and all: The athletes, the performers and spectators alike.

The Opening Ceremony wasn’t in a stadium, but Paris became a stadium.

Olympics always make my heart swell because the whole world comes together for just over 2 weeks to celebrate, admire, watch and support the greatest sportspeople on the most revered world stage. The last few games have been muted, as the world reeled from a pandemic that we all endured together. But as this year’s Olympics, Paris took the opoprtunity to welcome the world back to play in a quintessentially French way.

A spectacle for the ages, and one I think I’ll always remember.

Embracing the Discomfort: Skiiing Edition

In February 2021, a friend took us skiing for the first time. In the excitement of the opportunity, I severely under-estimated the difficulty of skiing, especially for someone who had never skated before (on land or ice). We went straight to the lift, up the mountain, and down the slope. And I fell. A lot. But that was also the day I decided I wanted to learn to ski and that I would be back. Someday.

In February 2023, watching adults and kids skiiing in a small town in Austria, as normally as walking, was a reminder of the joys of this winter sport. They were easygoing, relaxed and happy. It was just another Wednesday for them and they were skiing to get to the cafe, to buy groceries and just spend time with each other. It was a reminder of the sport I wanted to learn, and the normalcy of it all. It wasn’t so hard: It just required learning and practice.

And so this past ski season, I decided to take lessons. Finally. The first few lessons were rough. I fell a lot, and I got up each time. But I felt like I was learning. Albeit, slowly (or atleast slower than I’d like). I had to accept not having control directly on my feet, but rely on how my feet in skis felt on the snow. It was a few layers disconnected for me to feel immediately comfortable. Every time on the mountain was a new experience with different skis, snow, weather conditions and people traffic and most of all an evolving skill level; all of which brought its own set of learning. It took patience and strength to embrace the discomfort, while I was mentally drained and physically exhausted, to keep going and try that one more time, do that one extra run and try to fix the one thing I was trying to on any given day.

It took a few weeks to get used to being on the snow, and once I did, the reward of being able to ski while staring at snow-clad granite peaks of the Sierras, around the powdery pines and zig-zagging trails was a rewarding experience to cap off the season. I can’t wait for the 2024-25 ski season to start. I’ll likely fall a bunch, but I know I will get better if I keep at it. Slowly, steadily, eventually.

Goodbye Tweetbot

I have been actively using Twitter for years. I joined in late 2009 and have fond memories of using it. From a desktop first, then an iPod Touch using the official Twitter app, and then my old Sony Ericsson K790i by SMS-ing tweets, before switching over to using smartphones and using apps.

I did use the default Twitter app for a bit, but Tweetbot was the first iOS app I bought on the App Store in 2013, and added it immediately onto my dock where it stayed ever since. I have used Tweetbot since then. I continued to use Tweetbot through the years by buying / subscribing to new versions, despite the Twitter API always limiting third-party clients and not supporting all of the features the official apps and websites had.

And I lived with that deficit, because Tweetbot felt like home. Over the years, I have tried using the official app multiple times (and always have the app on my phone), but it has always been terrible. The experience of using Tweetbot was always so much better than the official app. Tweetbot didn’t have ads, only showed me tweets from my (curated) followers list, had a chronological timeline, maintained my point in the app even if I fell behind, was customizable, etc. But most of all: it had a so much better user experience that put me first. It never felt cluttered and made Twitter inviting.

Over the last ~3 years, I had reduced tweeting but I still consumed from it fairly regularly. Twitter was still an enjoyable experience when I wanted it because I had Tweetbot. The negativity since Elon Musk got involved in March 2022, though, has been overpowering, and I removed Tweetbot from my dock in early December 2022.

Tweetbot shutting down after Twitter abruptly disabled its APIs, though, does convince me to wane my use of Twitter even further. Twitter without Tweetbot doesn’t feel right. Trust me, I have tried! Mastodon is interesting, but it isn’t a Twitter replacement. Not yet atleast.

We’ll see where this journey goes, but until then, goodbye Tweetbot 🫡. Thank you for giving me such a pleasant Twitter experience for almost a decade. You will be sorely missed.

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

I don’t read much fiction, which makes me a very slow reader.

When I started reading The God of Small Things, I had no idea what to expect. I had read some of Arundhati Roy’s essays, but none of her books. I was prepared to be surprised and stunned, but not this… There was something approachable in this book that kept me going. There was honesty that kept me coming back. Through the last few months, this book was my casual read. And then my sorrow read. And then my intense read.

I’m amazed at the fluidity with which it moved back and forth in time, the simplicity of the language, the layers in the story, and the depth and thoroughness in the details.

Life is in the small things, indeed.

Dum dum.

Electricity Disruption

October 20, 2021 was a gloomy day. Gloomy enough that I had turned on the floor lamp by my desk even before I logged in to work. Just before noon, I was in the middle of an important meeting, listening to a colleague answer my question. About halfway through the answer, my lamp flickered, and then went off. Still trying to focus on the answer, which was starting to stutter, I said to myself, “Sigh, will I need to buy a new lamp now?”

It wasn’t a long time before my monitor went off and Zoom kicked me out. And then it struck me: My electricity had gone off. I scrambled to figure out how to get back to the meeting and managed to listen in from my phone. In the background, I was walking around the house checking for burnt smells or blown fuses. It wasn’t. “Was it just me?” I raced to the corridor. It wasn’t. I breathed a sigh of relief, and got back to my meeting.

About 10 minutes later, the meeting ended and I started trying to figure out what was going on. Since this hadn’t happened to me in years, I wasn’t sure what to expect. There had been electricity fluctuations leading to loss of power for a couple minutse, but this had been gone for about 15 minutes at this point. So, definitely not just a momentary fluctuation. That brought out an all-out survival mode.

I sent out an update to my team on Slack about me potentially being offline through the rest of the day. The battery on my work laptop has been in poor condition for months, but I haven’t bothered getting it fixed. My phone was at ~70%. My travel power bank wasn’t charged. And that’s when I put my phone in low power mode, which pushed my 5G reception to 4G LTE.

Around that time, my electricity provider sent an update saying the outage was affecting ~4000 customers. One customer corresponds to one house, so this could be affecting about 10000 people. “Damn, that’s a huge outage. Wonder when it’ll be back…?”

With that, I decided to cancel the couple other meetings I had scheduled for later that day. But emails from my phone wouldn’t go. Hmmm… I tried hotspotting from my phone, but my laptop refused to connect. A few minutes later, I gave up, but really didn’t have anything else to do.

“Maybe I should just sit by, wait and drink some coffee? Yeah, I can do that.” I walked to the kitchen only to realize the microwave wouldn’t work. That’s fine, I could brew myself a fresh cup (hey V60!. But wait, how do I heat water for it? My electric kettle. That was a problem. Okay, stove top… Urm, electric induction stove top. “Oops.”

Disappointed, I went back to my laptop. I finally managed to get hotspot working on my laptop. But neither my phone or my laptop would connect to the internet. Ugh. Airplane Mode on. Airplane Mode off. “Ugh.” Rinse and repeat. “Ugh.” As a last resort, I turned off low power mode. Suddenly, internet on my phone and laptop (which was on hotspot) started working.

💡. Remember the 10000 people who had lost electricity? USA has 3 big cellular providers. So, let’s assume 33% of them are using the same provider as me. That meant there was a sudden influx of 3333 (give or take) new connections that were on WiFi, were now using 4G to get work done. Or trying to, in my case. But the 5G spectrum was open. Hurray, my new phone purchase panned out!

I continued working, draining out my laptop battery and phone battery. About an hour and a half later, minutes before my laptop battery warning on low battery would come on, electricity was back. A few minutes later, WiFi was working again.

The outage lasted about 2 hours. Electricity disruption in a remote tech employee’s life was a microcosm, that made the scale of the ongoing global supply chain disruption all too real. Our world is deeply connected.

⚡️🧑‍💻☕️

iPhone 12 Mini

I walked out of the house this morning without my watch; one of the rare times I have done that in months. I tried to unlock my phone, and it asked me for my passcode because it couldn’t recognize my face. A few minutes later, same thing again. I wasn’t sure why it kept asking me for my passcode over and over. It felt unusual. And then it hit me: I was wearing my mask.

Just over 3 months ago, I switched to an iPhone 12 Mini (despite saying I wouldn’t) and I absolutely, thoroughly enjoy it. There’s a few reasons that I adore it.

1. Face ID Unlock with Apple Watch: A few months ago, I said:

   the only thing I miss from the X-class phones is Face ID (which is not really a bane in these mask-totting days)

   which was indeed what happened to me earlier today. I bought the 12 Mini after iOS 14.5 released, which meant I have been unlocking my phone with my watch, when I was wearing my mask, all the time I’ve owned it. I cannot over-state just how incredible a feature this is. I got frustrated without it in a 5-minute walk this morning!

2. Perfect One-Handed Size: My first iPhone was the iPhone 5. That size balanced one-handed use and screen size for 2012. The 12 Mini feels tiny compared to my gigantic 7 Plus, but it is almost the same size as my 5 (they share a design language, too!). I didn’t realize how much I missed using my phone with one hand until I could do it again.

3. Not a top-of-the-line phone: I bought the cheapest iPhone from the flagship line with mid-range storage. That’s unusual for me, but that has made me freer about my phone. I use it case-less and do not worry about damaging my phone anymore. I feel less materialistic. My phone feels more utalitarian than a precious object. It is just a phone and I happily use it without a case. (To contrast, I didn’t use my 7 Plus without a cover for a single day even after 4 years of use.)

Despite everything that I like about the 12 Mini, there is one thing that I really miss from my 7 Plus (and the 12 Pro line-up): the 2x telephoto lens. My ideal phone is one of the 12 Mini’s size but Pro’s camera system (or a 12 Mini Pro, in John Gruber’s words) with all 3 lenses: macro, normal and telephoto.

Here’s to dreaming about an iPhone Mini Pro, and in the meanwhile, enjoying the 12 Mini :).

Why I'm not Buying a new iPhone

2020, like everything else, has changed my perspective on how to decide whether to get a new phone. Some of the reasons I switch to a new iPhone are: a) Camera, b) Software, c) Design, d) Speed, e) Length of ownership. I compare the state of my current phone, with the new phones, to decide whether to buy that year’s iPhone to replace my current iPhone.

Once I buy a new phone, I use it for years, and thus always buy the top-of-the-line phone from that series. 8 years ago, that meant it was the iPhone 5 (64GB). When the time came to replace it 4 years ago, that translated into an iPhone 7 Plus (256GB). Plus because of its better camera (first iPhone with a telephoto lens).

Every iPhone released thereafter (8, X, XR, XS, 11, 11 Pro, 12) have ticked off atleast one of the boxes on my list, but none checked off all the boxes. For instance, the 11 Pro checked off everything except design (the 11 line-up had a dated design).

Until the iPhone 12 Pro. [I thought] I was due for a new phone, and the iPhone 12 Pro intro was like a checklist down my wishlist. And yet, the pandemic is the black swan which has changed my plans.

I have no complains with my current phone. It works well, is fast, and has been stable (battery life notwithstanding). I love the design because of the color (hey Jet Black!). It supports iOS 14 and from the software-perspective the only thing I miss from the X-class phones is Face ID (which is not really a bane in these mask-totting days), and ProRAW. It all comes down to one single criteria: Camera. And the 12 Pro appears to have that comparison in the bag.

As I contemplated which of the new phones I should order, I started wondering if I should order one at all. Most of the photos I click are when I’m traveling. In the middle of a pandemic that has meant I’m not traveling nearly as much, what am I even going to take photos of? Yes, it will not be the same forever, but won’t there be a new iPhone next year when I probably will be closer to resuming more travel? So why buy a new iPhone now, to replace my very-capable 7 Plus?

Handwashing with an Apple Watch

One of the two standout features in WatchOS 7 for me was handwashing. Today, it has been just over a week since I turned on handwashing notifications.

Some background on the new feature:

• Apple Watch can now detect when hands are being washed and encourages you with gentle taps on your wrist to continue for atleast 20 seconds.
• When your return home, it can now remind you to wash your hands.

My observations so far:

• When I said “Hand washing countdowns are cute and I love that they exist ☺️,” 3 months ago, I under-estimated it.
• Handwashing is detected only when actually washing hands, typically about 5 seconds after I start scrubbing my hands.
• It appears to be relying on accelerometer movements to determine when hands are being scrubbed, not microphone to determine flow of water.
• I haven’t experienced a single false positive yet on notifications to continue washing my hand.
• No false positives when rinsing hands or doing the dishes.
• The first time I returned home after turning this on, I was reminded to wash my hands just after I had removed my shoes as I was about to change my clothes. Pretty darn incredible feeling, that.
• That same day, a permission dialog popped up asking how frequently I wanted ‘Handwashing’ to have access to my location. Cute.
• It does not detect movement within my apartment complex (mailbox, parking) as leaving the home and returning.
• It can, however, get reminders for returning home wrong. I was once asked to wash my hands just as I was driving out of the parking garage.
• It doesn’t appear to be using barometer readings to determine the height, so the parking level is treated the same as my home (a couple levels over).
• I was out camping over the last weekend, and washed my hands with water that was a few degrees over freezing. Those were some pretty rough 20-seconds, but the Watch’s motivation made it a game that I had to win.
• I didn’t realize just how many times I had a tendency to not scrub my hands for a full 20-seconds; it seems I was often in the 15-second range. (No, I do not have a handwashing song.)
• I appreciate the gentle nudges whether I am anticipating them or not. It leaves me with a smile on my face everytime I wash my hands :).

Definitely one of those Apple-y things that surprise and delight. Truly.

Takeaways from the WWDC 2020 Keynote

I am an Apple enthusiast, and I just watched the WWDC 2020 keynote. Here’s what I thought (in no specific order):

iOS 14

• Reaching for the top row apps on my iPhone 7 Plus is not easy. I can rarely, if ever, use my phone with a single hand anymore. So, I appreciate the new home screen layout. It definitely appears useful at first glance.
• I can see myself adding Dark Sky (wait, will it still be updated?!) and Fantastical widgets, but I don’t think I’ll add much else. We’ll see.
• Pinned conversations, inline replies, mentions… Love it all. Also, mask Memoji 😷!
• As someone that obsessively downloads (and keeps) apps from cafes, stores, and parking apps I only need about once every year, and refuses to delete them for the one time time I might need them again, I love the idea of App Clips. I can (hopefully) get rid of all those unused apps.
• I am nitpicky about my home screen layout, so I’m conflicted about the new dynamic App Library. I can imagine it being useful, but it might also play against my muscle memory.
• No more full-screen popovers for phone calls or Siri! YES!
• Rarely use iPhone to watch video, so couldn’t care less about picture-in-picture.
• Lot of appreciation for the new privacy features. I have desired approximate location for so many apps that I don’t trust, but still have to provide location information to.
• Camera and microphone usage indicators are godsend. I have often wondered how many apps exploit those permissions because they have them.
• Overall not a lot is changing, which is a good thing.

Apple Maps

• Biking directions with elevation! I have wished for this to have existed for months as I struggled with mapping my bike rides. This alone will make me update to iOS 14 on day 1.

iPadOS 14

• Neat improvements to handwriting recognition and scribble.

AirPods

• Seamless switching: Why did it take so long?!
• Spatial Audio: Tempting me to buy a set of AirPods Pro.

watchOS 7

• Hand washing countdowns are cute and I love that they exist ☺️.
• Sleep tracking appears cool, but I also don’t like wearing my Apple Watch while I’m asleep.

Safari

• Amazing new privacy controls. I use Safari all day, everyday. It is already very fast, secure and neatly integrated. The privacy improvements take what is great and make it even better.
• I’m going to obsess for a while over the Privacy Reports of some of my most visited websites.
• The new hover-on-tab feature that displays a tiny thumbnail is also really nice. It is one of the things I miss the most from my days of Firefox.

macOS Big Sur (11.0!)

• I like the new design aesthetic in the apps, but hate the new icons. The iOS-ified icons feel out of place. Maybe they’ll grown on me over time.
• Control Center is neat, and so is the new notification pane.
• Messages and Apple Maps are Catalyst ports, but get feature parity with iOS. Cool!
• Overall: A slate of nice updates for a mature desktop OS. Lots of polish, I hope.

App Store

• Simple, easy to understand privacy policies for every app before you download it? Yes, please!

Mac’s Transition to Apple SoC

• This might actually go through in a seamless way than I had thought.
• A12Z running Final Cut Pro and 3 streams of 4K, and driving the 6K Pro Display XDR? Damn, that’s powerful.
• Emulation also appears to be fast.
• Not a fan of iOS and iPadOS apps running on macOS. That sounds like a recipe for lazy developers to not make good, native macOS apps, while allowing Apple to boast ‘millions of apps on day 1’.
• I can’t wait to learn more about the upcoming Mac line-up. Such an exciting time!

Miscellaneous

• The production quality of this year’s presentation was exemplary.
• It was uncanny (and weird) to look at close-ups of Tim Cook and Craig Federighi as they talked to the camera. It was too close and too in-my-face.