Text on Setu's (micro)blog

iPhone 5 is Obsolete

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 23:51:25 -0700

On March 16, 2026, Apple updated its vintage and obsolete products list and added iPhone 5 to the obsolete list.

iPhone 5 was my first iPhone. I haven’t been actively using it for over 9 years at this point (I still pull it out of the drawer and hold it every few months), but seeing the news story just reminded me of my old phone, and the memories.

From my former self:

The joy of using an iPhone is in the little things, like not having to press a button when you’ve entered your 4-digit passcode, the way the speaker and earphones volumes always is controlled separately, the way you see the brightness slider slides subtly to low or high when the light in the room changes. The small ways in which when you use it, you know someone at Apple has spent their time making it just right. You can’t always put your finger on it, but you realize you’re accustomed to that care, so much that may be even pampered, even when you temporarily use someone else’s phone.

iPhone Air

Sun, 19 Oct 2025 14:42:53 -0700

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!).

The Paris 2024 Olympics Opening Ceremony was Spectacular

Sun, 28 Jul 2024 17:22:47 -0700

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.

Embracing the Discomfort: Skiiing Edition

Mon, 27 May 2024 16:58:19 -0700

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.

Goodbye Tweetbot

Fri, 20 Jan 2023 17:41:56 -0800

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.

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

Sun, 08 May 2022 01:42:19 -0700

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.

Electricity Disruption

Mon, 01 Nov 2021 23:37:07 -0700

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?”

iPhone 12 Mini

Sun, 22 Aug 2021 19:19:57 -0700

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.

Why I'm not Buying a new iPhone

Tue, 27 Oct 2020 23:37:42 -0700

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).

Handwashing with an Apple Watch

Wed, 30 Sep 2020 22:37:00 -0700

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:

Takeaways from the WWDC 2020 Keynote

Mon, 22 Jun 2020 19:13:12 -0700

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.

What Will be the New Normal?

Fri, 24 Apr 2020 00:17:34 -0700

On January 31, 2020, when USA started restricting entry into USA from China, I felt lucky that it happened then, and not 20 days earlier when I was flying through Beijing on my way back to USA. Little did I imagine then that it was only the beginning of what was to come in the next few months (years?).

Over the last 6-weeks, SARS-CoV-2 (2019-nCoV) has transformed the world as I knew it. During this time, I have been thinking a lot more about what this will do to us as a species, us as human beings, and us as citizens. Watching TV shows where people are not distancing from one another, hanging out outside their home or even going to an office, feels weird!

Instagram has Terrible Account Security

Wed, 15 Apr 2020 23:57:42 -0700

A few days back, someone reached out to me suspecting that their Instagram account had been hacked. What followed was me helping them work through every available way to lock down their account and then convincing them that they had done everything and it didn’t seem like it was hacked. In the process, though, as a proof-of-concept, I followed the same procedure I helped them go through. That brings me to what I learnt about Instagram and its account security practices.

Why I Use Apple Maps

Fri, 28 Feb 2020 19:33:14 -0800

For over 3 years now, since I moved to USA, I have primarily relied on Apple Maps for all of my travel and mapping needs. And the reasons for it, in more or less my order of priority, are pretty simple:

Apple Maps has all the places and locations I have ever wanted to go to. There hasn’t been a single place that I have tried to go to and not found it on it.
Ever since I started using it in 2016, it has never got me to a wrong place or put me on an incorrect route.
It has eerily accurate travel time predictions, and others agree. Waze may estimate the shortest times, but they are rarely ever accurate. Google Maps is better, but still has variability. Apple, on the other hand, usually predicts the exact time or slightly over. For me, that translates ETAs into TAs ;).
Privacy. This is a big, recurring and extremely important topic for me. I do not want one company to have all my data, use it for profiling me, follow me around the web and sell that data to target me with ads.
It is fast. Blazing fast. While Google Maps has continued to get more bloated over the years, Apple Maps has gotten faster. Vector maps do that, you know? That also means I haven’t really needed to ‘download maps for offline use’ (which Apple Maps does not offer). The cache is pretty reasonable so just routing to a place or exploring it has added the maps for to my device.
Speaking of offline use: It reroutes successfully even when I am offline and make a wrong turn or miss a turn!
The timing and space between Apple Maps notifications for upcoming turns matches the prep time I need to make a turn or take an exit.
While it doesn’t have the bells and whistles of Google Maps, it does maps right and that’s all I usually care about.
I have found Apple Maps’ lane guidance to be much more accurate.
With iOS 13, Apple Maps has added an incredible new amount of features that includes locations of signals and stop signs and included that for even better guidance (’turn right at the next light’!).

I Went to Statue of Unity

Tue, 28 Jan 2020 21:53:14 -0800

Almost about a month ago, I visited the Statue of Unity (SoU), Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s statue near Baroda. Hailed as the biggest statue in the world, this was my first experience of visiting a tourist destination in India after living and traveling in USA for over 3 years. Here are some of my thoughts and observations from that visit, in approximate order of my visit:

I was there on 26th December, 2019. The tickets to go to the observation deck were sold out, so I could only walk up to the foot of the statue (more on that later).
My first (and most consistent) observation throughout was the sheer mismanagement of the whole operation. The site had 3 attractions, the statue itself, a garden and a dam viewpoint. The only way to travel from one of the parking lots to these attractions was to take a bus setup and run by the SoU complex. However, I could not choose where I went. I was forced to go from parking - statue - dam - garden - statue - parking, getting off at each step, walk fairly significant distances, wait in long lines, before being able to get into the next bus. Talk about compounding delays…
Every photo, hoarding, symbol in the SoU complex was attributed to Narendra Modi and (to a lesser extent) Vijay Rupani. I mean, just look at this bus run by SoU for transport in the area (not in the photo is a circular logo of Statue of Unity on the far left, of the same size as other circles). The photos of Modi and Rupani are, unsurprisingly, larger than the statue or Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel! Or look at the website for this statue, which maintains the same theme.

The transportation between different sights of attraction in the Statue of Unity complex.

Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari

Sun, 26 Jan 2020 16:53:14 -0800

Over the years, one thing that consistently bothered me was my inability to read and finish books. I started a lot of books, but finished rarely any. Over time, I lost interest in reading books. I read a lot of articles, blogs and news stories, some tens of thousands of words long, but I never got around to reading books.

In late November, I decided that I wanted to change this about myself and that I wanted to read more. For that, I needed a book that would keep me hooked, keep me interested. Over the last year, I had read and heard a lot of praise for Sapiens, and I was certain that that was the book I wanted to read. And so, it was.

Merriam-Webster Word of the Year 2019: They

Wed, 08 Jan 2020 11:58:52 +0530

There were a few things towards the end of 2019 that made me happy. ‘They’ being chosen as word of the year, was one among them.

Over the last year, I have started using ‘they’ frequently as pronouns for people whose pronouns I did not know, and it started from something really simple: I choose to not give pronouns to someone else. I want to let them be them, pick their pronouns, respect their identity, and not judge them.

Website Update (2019)

Tue, 31 Dec 2019 18:48:52 +0530

I have had my personal website since early 2012. Since then, I have used a typical website hosting model and relied heavily on CMSes like WordPress to help me host things that I write.

Over time, I have realized I was ambitious with what I set out to do and didn’t actually keep up with the various sub-sites that I created. That led to many of those WP installations becoming unused. However, in the 7+ years since, across multiple website hosting provider migrations and services, it was a painful process to keep those sites running. So, recently, I archived those sub-sites.

Archived Blogs

Sat, 30 Nov 2019 22:41:27 -0700

I have been guilty of not updating some of my old blogs for years now. Namely, my ‘Unwind’ and ‘I Talk Tech’ blogs. Even though they were unused, I still had to maintain their WordPress installations over the years as I migrated across web hosts and migrations. It was laborious to keep updating WordPress to the latest version for zero-traffic web blogs.

Today, I finally migrated them off a static WordPress installation that I had moved to a few months back (that was riddled with broken links and no theme CSS), to my Tumblr. My old posts from ‘I Talk Tech’ are now available here, and from ‘Unwind’ are here. In the future, I expect my tech and leisure posts to be posted right here, so Tumblr only exists as a dump for my previous posts.

What Narendra Modi Should Fix

Tue, 01 Oct 2019 20:21:39 -0700

A few days ago I posed a question to Twitter asking people what their tipping point for supporting Modi was? To put it in a different way, if you support Modi today (and / or have for the last 5+ years), what is the one thing, that if he does it, would make you cease supporting him.

It is not a very difficult question (but it can be). If you are someone that does support someone, anyone, something, I think this is a question you should ask yourself. I often ask the same of myself, and it helps me in understanding why I prefer something or someone over the other.

U.S. National Park Service

Sat, 17 Aug 2019 16:56:58 -0700

It has been just over 3 years since I have been in the USA, and in this time I have come to realize that one of my favorite things about USA is the National Park Service. I have visited more than 15 national parks in various parts of the country, hiked across most of them, and marvelled at the things I saw. I have experienced snow-clad mountains, scorching deserts, canyons that have been shaped over millions of years, hot springs sitting on volcanoes, tiny streams, glacial lakes, and rivers with lush waterfalls. No 2 parks were the same and I have never felt underwhelmed at the end of each day.

Data + Science

Mon, 01 Jul 2019 23:01:17 -0700

‘Data never lies; people do.’

Data is an amusing artefact. It exists all around us, in many forms, and unless we know exactly how to read it, we are oblivious to it. It is no wonder that most professions are based in the ability to understand one specific type of data. We spend a quarter of our lives just learning about different types of data and figuring out which one we want to spend the rest of our lives around! What are skills if not the art of interpreting data? It is in this interpretation that lies are born from. Data doesn’t write stories, interpreters do. What comes from understanding the data is the hypotheses, observations, conclusions, drawn from the data. That is not what the data tells us; that is what the interpreter understands from the data, given their abilties.

Using Instagram in 2019

Fri, 28 Jun 2019 18:27:21 -0700

8 years. That’s how long I’ve had an Instagram account. My Instagram profile is a curation, it is a reminder of everywhere I have been, some of my best photographs, akin to a portfolio. I have seen it go from a niche, Facebook acquisition, ads, it becoming a popular app, adding stories and messages. I’m not a fan of most of Instagram’s changes, so here’s a little bit about how I use Instagram these days, in 2019.

Game of Thrones: Finale

Mon, 20 May 2019 19:27:53 -0700

I watched the Game of Thrones finale about 24 hours back and have had the time to gather my thoughts about it. Unpopular opinion, but I liked it.

(Of course there are spoilers ahead!)

TL;DR: It was an acceptable end to the show, but not a satisfactory one.

Here’s why:

Daenarys’ turn into an evil overlord may have been sudden(-ish) but it has been brewing, even if it didn’t latch on to the audience. And Tyrion did a really good job at explaining it.
Jon didn’t want to be king, he didn’t want it and he would’ve been a terrible king. He was too kind and loyal, which was his unbecoming. And if he wasn’t those, he wouldn’t be loved. He did the right thing by killing Daenarys but if he had become king then, he wouldn’t be any better than those evil rulers who would do anything for the iron throne. In fact, him returning to the Wall and further north is a perfect punishment for his crime. I am glad he didn’t end up as king.
Bran as the king makes a lot of sense. There’s no one else who has his abilities, and can rule without emotions. He has a clear goal, a clear idea of where the world should go and has not been afraid to make tough choices to get there. It may be unsatisfying, but it is totally digestible. In fact, we saw the way he would rule in that small gathering, where he delegated everything away and stuck to his strengths.
Tyrion has been a curious character throughout the show, and he never should’ve been king, but kingmaker? Sure. I think it is befitting that he goes on to become The Hand.
The person who won the ‘Game of Thrones’ was Sansa Stark. It has been a fascinating journey to watch her grow from a helpless, naive lady into this strong, smart Queen. Her transition has been commendable.
Arya, true to her character, went out and did her thing. It was mildly disappointing that she didn’t kill either Cersei or Daenarys, but it was impressive to see her mature and let go of childish obsessions.
My favorite part of the episode was the end. GoT became what it did because of 2 huge events in the storyline that left audiences in shock (the death of Ned Stark at the end of season 1, and The Red Wedding in season 3). Both focused on the Starks. Then, it was the death and resurrection of Jon Snow. Sprinkled around the whole show were these steady advances that Arya, Sansa and Bran made in their own lives. In a way, the whole show has always surrounded the Starks. GoT started as a show in Winterfell, following the lives of the Starks. The last two seasons have been great, in that they were an intersection of those divulging paths. The last few minutes of the show, as they showed them divulging back again, only happier, more peaceful and deserving, brought a smile to my face. It was a way of the young Starks telling the audience, ‘Thank you for following our journey, we take leave now.’

Reboot

Sun, 19 May 2019 22:35:21 -0700

It has been just over a year since my last post here. Things have changed a lot since then. I moved to a different city thrice, I graduated from my Master’s program and started my first real job. Those are the highlights, but there are also a lot of nitty-gritty details that matter.

During all that time, a few constant thoughts have strongly been on my mind. One of them has been this space, my micro(blog). I kept wanting to write, but the struggle of what to write always existed. I did end up writing a few Twitter threads in the period, and a couple blog posts, but I am not a fan of the fact that I did not keep up here.

Next Phase of Life

Thu, 17 May 2018 15:58:01 -0500

The last few months have been some of the most gruelling ones I have ever encountered, personally and professionally. I was supposed to graduate next month with my Masters, but I pushed that to December because a marvellous opportunity presented in the nick of time. In about 24 hours, I will leave Indianapolis, which has been my home since I arrived in USA in August, 2016, to pursue a research internship at one of the biggest technology companies in the world. Two years ago, had someone told me I’d be pursuing a research internship today, I’d have laughed really hard at that proposition. Now, I am only incredibly happy.

India & Politics

Sun, 25 Mar 2018 14:53:32 -0500

Indian politics is one of the most complicated and divided in the world, and it is amplified by the diversity of the country. I came across this forum discussion about why self-driving cars remain and will probably remain a dream in India for the foreseeable future, while the developed world inches towards policies and laws governing such vehicles. Much of the blame with a lot of India’s problems starts with the polity, but fairly trickle down to the people who put them in power.

AAAI 2018

Thu, 08 Feb 2018 02:25:41 -0500

Over the last few days, I attended AAAI 2018, which is among the premier conferences on AI conducted in the whole year. I feel honored that I got a chance to present my research project under the ‘Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence’ (IAAI-18) track, and attend the whole conference. Having attended two much smaller and more specialized IEEE conferences in the last 6 months, the sheer scale and expert knowledge of AAAI has been an overwhelming experience.

Short Films

Fri, 12 Jan 2018 00:37:14 -0500

For the last few months, I have been watching a bunch of short films on YouTube, with most of them being from Indian directors, actors and storytellers. And everytime I watch a good one I am amazed at the amount of talent in India. Not just actors or directors, but also photographers, videographers, editors, sound engineers, etc. It has been a pleasant experience, and one that I am sure to continue for quite a long time (my YouTube Watch Later playlist is full of short films that seem interesting).

Website Update (2018)

Tue, 09 Jan 2018 00:35:23 -0500

I have spent a couple hours in the last few days moving my website to a new host. I knew that when I did this, I wanted to add a new CMS to start writing more often. I did that. And then, I spent some time updating the content on my home page to reflect my recent work, projects, etc.

A lot has happened in the last ~18 months. I graduated with a degree in Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering from Pune University, and started pursuing a Master’s degree in Computer Engineering at Purdue School of Engineering and Technology, Indianapolis, USA. I have spent more time doing research than anything else in the last year, and I am happier for it. I wanted to communicate that to people visiting my website, and thus the update. If you haven’t already, take a look.

New Beginnings

Mon, 08 Jan 2018 17:47:13 -0500

Ever since I have been blogging I have had the desire to share more and more. But for most such thoughts I don’t intend to write a whole blogpost. I have been toying with the idea of starting a micro-blog for quite a while now. I often stumble upon things that I want to write about, but not to the extent of a full-fledged blog post. I want to use this space for all such thoughts and things.