Apple on Setu's (micro)blog

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!).

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:

Online Privacy Should Be Modeled on Real-World Privacy

Mon, 07 Sep 2020 17:56:14 -0700

I read Daring Fireball often and one of the things I strongly agree with Gruber on is privacy. I think privacy ought to be a fundamental right and I loathe the practices of tech companies that are formulated on invading it. That is also why I use DuckDuckGo as my default search engine.

John Gruber wrote this post following Apple’s new iPhone ad (watch it, it is a great one) about companies act as privacy thieves by tracking people across the internet. I agree with it in its entirety.

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.

Playing with Apple's COVID-19 Mobility Data for India

Sat, 13 Jun 2020 14:39:33 -0700

I came across Apple’s COVID-19 mobility dataset in mid-May. Instantly, I was curious. I have been interested in understanding how the world is changing ever since the pandemic begam, and thinking about what it means in the short and long-term.

As I started exploring the data and seeing some interesting patterns in there, I started thinking about if there were ways I could share it and make it public. Of course, there’s always Jupyter Notebooks, but I don’t enjoy making my notebooks overtly formal and presentable.