I had been using the Apple iPhone 14 Pro for more than 2 years. But I started yearning to upgrade it as soon as iPhone 16 Pro was announced. I did try to convince myself to wait for another year, but last month, I gave up and bought the iPhone 16 Pro.
The iPhone 16 Pro is a delight to hold without a case
My views on the iPhone 16 Pro
The battery life is much better than the 14 Pro. The phone, now, easily lasts a full day without a top-up. Although I do top-up during the day most days.
Charging is much faster (Including wireless) and the phone emits less heat while charging.
The cameras are a modest improvement. I don’t see a big difference in picture quality most of the times, but for low-light photos, I do see an improvement. Portrait photos are also faster now, with motion frozen. The 5x zoom is useful, but I, personally haven’t found a use-case for it till now. Disappointed that portrait mode photos are still 12MP.
The phone feels much cooler while using. It didn’t overheat once during initial setup, which was more or less guaranteed on the 14 Pro.
It is such a relief to remove the last lightning port personal device from my life and get rid of all remaining lightning cables.
The display is slightly bigger (Although with similar specs) and the bezels slightly smaller, but I don’t notice any of that because I switched from using my phone with a case/screen guard, to using without it, which made a bigger difference.
I can finally fulfil my desire to use my phone without a case. Overall, the phone is extremely pleasurable to hold naked.
The Titanium sides are not glossy like the 14 Pro, almost matte. Looks beautiful and elegant. Doesn’t slip when holding.
The edges are not as sharp as on the 14 Pro.
There’s a pronounced slope when the phone is resting on its back, because of the huge camera island. And since the island is on one side, not in the centre, it is impossible to use the phone when it is lying on a flat surface, as it flops around.
iPhone 16 Pro slope because of camera bump
iPhone 16 Pro Titanium White
Lessons learnt when selling the old Phone
Going to great lengths to keep the phone in pristine condition without a single scratch is not worth it. At the end of the day, it hardly earns any extra money while selling it.
Things like cases, screen guards are all dead weight.
Paying to replace the battery is useless because no one pays extra for battery health.
I have been using the Apple Watch Series 7 for almost 3 years without any complaints, nor had a yearning to upgrade. However, the battery health went down gradually over the years. Eventually, at 79% health, I couldn’t even complete a 10k with it playing music while connected to LTE. Fighting back the urge to get the Series 9 or Ultra 2, I decided to wait for the Apple Watch Series 10 and buy that. Strangely in Thailand, it was launched much later, even after India.
Since I experienced a financial windfall, I decided to move up to the Titanium variant.
Apple Watch Series 10 Natural Titanium with Natural Milanese LoopApple Watch Series 10 showing silver colour
My views on the watch
Titanium is absolutely gorgeous. As you can see in the photos above, the watch has a golden hue in warm lighting and silver in cool lighting. At some angles, looks jet black, too.
I had planned to use the Milanese Loop only when going out and my old Braided Solo Loop all other times for comfort. However, I found the Milanese loop much more comfortable than I had assumed, so I almost always wear that.
Wrist temperature monitoring is good to have, but I wasn’t yearning for it.
I can see the difference in screen size, but don’t find it revolutionary. I thought it would look comically big on my wrist, but thankfully, doesn’t. The bigger bezels are also hardly noticeable.
I don’t find the watch any faster or any better in any other way.
I don’t see any changes or improvements to exercise tracking (Except the better battery life, of course).
I can’t remember to use the pinch gestures to decline calls etc.
Apple Watch Series 10 on the dawg’s wrist
Overall, I can say that the upgrade from Aluminium to Titanium is a bigger upgrade, compared to technical improvements (From Series 7 to Series 10) which are nice-to-have but not revolutionary.
Windows 98 SE was the first OS on my first computer, so this was a huge trip in nostalgia. I made an ISO from my old and scratched Windows 98 SE disk, mounted it in UTM SE and let it boot.
Windows 98 SE, Start Computer with CD ROM Support
The boot screen sent me into throes of nostalgia. So did the next steps.
Windows 98 Setup, Formatting Hard DiskMicrosoft ScanDisk, Checking File System
I could feel myself going crazy when the setup GUI came up.
Windows 98 Setup, To begin Setup, click Continue
I got stuck for a while here because I couldn’t make my keyboard and mouse work. Eventually, I figured out that I needed to disable support for USB peripherals and I could continue.
Setup is preparing the Windows 98 Setup WizardWindows 98 Setup Wizard, Select DirectoryWelcome to Microsoft Windows 98Windows 98 SE Setup, Easier to get HelpWindows 98 SE Setup, More Entertaining
After the first reboot, I was presented with the famous “first time” Windows 98 boot splash screen. Another huge dose of nostalgia.
Microsoft Windows 98, Getting Ready to run Windows for the first time
The second phase of the setup is (was) my favourite. I especially like the part with the beating drums animation.
Windows 98 is initializing its driver databaseIs Windows now detecting non Plug and Play hardware in my computer?Windows is now setting up the following itemsUpdating Shortcuts: ProgramsWindows 98 Setup, Updating System Settings
Eventually, after an hour and 50% of my iPad’s battery, setup was complete and it booted into Windows.
New Hardware Found, Standard Display Adapter (VGA)New hardware found, Default Monitor
Last week, something unthinkable happened. Apple finally allowed emulation of any and all OS on iOS and iPadOS. The intended purpose is to emulate retro Windows based games, which matches their recent trend of approval of gaming-system emulation apps. However, for me, it restarts a long-time hobby of running retro OSes purely for nostalgia and hobby purposes. This was not possible before because I don’t have a real computer, just an iPad. The first app to take advantage of this change of heart from Apple is UTM SE.
Now, UTM SE has been available on macOS and jailbroken iOS and iPadOS for quite some time, but this is the first time the app is officially available through the App Store.
Overview
The process to configure a new VM is much like most virtualisation apps out there. You use either an existing image or create a new one, select various parameters like RAM, HDD, CPU architecture, cores etc.
UTM SE: New VMUTM SE: Mount CD/DVD or Floppy imageInside UTM SE: Select Platform, CPU architecture, RAM and CPU CoresUTM SE: Select HDD Size
Your Bluetooth mice/keyboards can be mapped to the guest OS via USB or PS/2 emulation. For older OS (Pre Windows ME) which don’t have out of-box support for USB peripherals, you need to disable USB support for Mouse/Keyboard so that they are emulated as PS/2. Even touch gestures can be used in lieu of a mouse, although the experience is clunky.
UTM SE: Switch between USB or PS/2 for mouse and keyboard
Another useful feature is that you can map a folder on your iOS/iPadOS filesystem to the guest machine allowing you to transfer files easily.
Select Shared Directory
Also, you can choose to include your VMs in your iCloud backups.
For me, the performance is roughly similar to my first Celeron 400Mhz computer. Which, when compared to the 4×3.49Ghz high-performance cores on the Apple M2 means there is an approx 35x performance penalty for emulation. No wonder the “SE’ in UTM stands for “Slow Edition”.
Also, switching to another app causes UTM to suspend the VM after a few minutes. None of this is UTM’s fault, but needless restrictions from Apple to stop iPads from cannibalising Mac sales.
Also, the iPad screen locks after inactivity, which I think is on UTM, because apps (especially games) have been able to keep the screen unlocked through inactivity.
But the good thing is, you can resume from where you left off. Also, you can run multiple windows of UTM itself, even with multiple windows mapping to multiple monitors on the guest.
Battery usage is also extremely high because of the inefficiencies.
The story is that I was looking for a keyboard for my iPad, leaning towards the Magic Keyboard. But it seemed too expensive for what it was offering. Simultaneously, I had some allowance to spend from my office on ergonomic peripherals. One day, both these things clicked together and I decided to buy a wireless mechanical keyboard.
I tried a Keychron keyboard but didn’t like it much because the key travel was too deep and the colours pretty drab. Eventually, Ashish suggested Nuphy via a proxy and I decided to buy the Air75v2.
Nuphy Air75v2 at office
It turned out to be one of the best purchases ever. I never knew typing could be such a pleasurable experience, but now it is.
The keys are solid, the travel is not too deep and the feedback is just amazing. I love typing on it so much, I even took up extra documentation at work. I have the wisteria keys which don’t have an audible click but do have a noticeable thump.
iPad with Nuphy Air75v2
It can pair to up to 4 devices and switch between them using a key combo.
The backlight is fancy but I mostly have it turned off. The keyboard runs QMK firmware and supports VIA, but the customisations are quite technical to set up and use and I just don’t bother.
I just wish that instead of a switch to toggle between Windows and Mac modes, it could auto detect like Logitech keyboards do.
Side profile of Nuphy Air75v2Nuphy Air75v2 side profile
I couldn’t end 2023 without another iPad debacle. I already went through how I bought an iPad Pro 12.9 and iPad Pro 11 back in 2022. After the 2022 debacle, I ended up without an iPad, but reasonably satisfied. Then 2023 came around and things went wrong.
As part of my New Years’ resolution, I started reading again. The only problem was, English books are very expensive in Thailand. On top of that, English Indian books are very hard to find. To solve this problem, I bought a Kindle. All was good for a few months, till I felt like I wanted to read comic books & magazines. Of course you cannot do that on a kindle. So what does one do?
One day while walking through the mall, I saw a good deal on an iPad Air (5th Gen) & bought it. Things were OK for a while, I read both books and magazines on it, no problem. However, the poorly storage space (64Gb) and the 60Hz screen started nagging me. Especially when I switched from using my iPhone to the iPad, it felt really bad. I decided that it won’t do. My daughter’s 4 year old iPad was acting up, so I gave her my Air and started looking around.
iPad Pro 11 (4th Gen) 512Gb
The iPad Pro 11 was seemingly perfect. It addressed the storage and display refresh rate limitations of the Air. Weeks went by, with me oblivious to what’s coming next. And then I made a mistake of checking out iPads at the mall. Once I compared the iPad Pro 11 and iPad Pro 12.9 displays, it was game over for this iPad, too.
I hadn’t done my homework before buying this iPad. If I had, I would know that the iPad Pro 11 had a regular LCD screen which goes up to 600 nits. The iPad Pro 12.9 on the other hand, has a Mini LED display and the difference is mind blowing. The contrast and brightness were incomparable. And once I saw this, I couldn’t go back to the iPad Pro 11. It was outside the return window, so I sold it on Facebook Marketplace at a slight loss. I was lucky I got such a good deal.
iPad Pro 12.9 (6th Gen) 512Gb
The next logical step was to buy the iPad Pro 12.9. I chose to forget what happened last time and bought one from the Apple Store. The good news was, I couldn’t find anything wrong with it. I even went a long way towards getting used to its huge size and weight. Then I saw a deal on Studio 7 and I returned the iPad to Apple (The process took less than 10 mins).
iPad Pro 12.9 (5th Gen) 512Gb
The deal I saw was for an iPad Pro 12.9 (5th Gen) for less than what I paid for the last one. The kicker is, this was a 2Tb model. I couldn’t ever use the 2Tb, but the 1Tb/2Tb models do come with 16Gb RAM, too and appealed to me no end. I ended up saving money with the last transition, but didn’t lose much because the 5th Gen to 6th Gen upgrade was minor at best. I had second thoughts after buying this one, too and even contacted customer care to return it, but eventually slapped myself hard twice and stopped it. But after the holidays came and went and it didn’t even ship, I cancelled the order.
iPad Pro 12.9 (6th Gen) 512Gb
Eventually, I gave up and went back to the Apple Store and bought the same iPad I bought before the last one, but this time in Silver colour.
Analysis
After the dust settled, I tried to think about why this happens to me and why specifically only with iPads. Why did I go through 7 iPads in a span of 10 months? My iPhone is more than a year old and I felt no yearning to upgrade when the iPhone 15 Pro came out. My AirPods Pro lasted 4 years before I had to change them because they died. My Apple Watch is 2 generations old and the last one lasted 4 generations. I have never wanted a Mac or a MacBook. This literally doesn’t happen to me for anything except the iPad.
Eventually, I realised it is because I am looking for a single device to do all of the below
In Thailand, I see EV everywhere. I had even been on a few EV Taxis. But, before, this, I had never driven an EV before, in Thailand or elsewhere. My association with EVs started and ended with this article I researched 14 years ago.
This week, we had many holidays, so we decided to take a day-trip to a nearby beach. Opening the car rental app, I was surprised to see that the cheapest car for that day was an EV. Normally I wouldn’t have given it a second thought, but the deal was too good to pass up. So I went ahead and booked it, an Ora Good Cat.
The first few hours after booking were a bit stressful. I had never driven an EV before, much less a rental. So I started researching everything about how to drive an EV in Thailand.
First, I made a list of EV charging providers in Thailand.
The below providers do not allow expats to register at all, because a Thai ID number and verification is necessary.
Using this information, I was able to locate charging stations near the beach, on the highway while coming back and near the rental agency to charge it before returning.
Having completed my research, now it was time to finally drive an EV in Thailand!
The Car
The first impression of the car is that it is actually much bigger than it looks. It is the size of a Suzuki Swift or Hyundai i20. The rental came fully loaded – Apple Wireless CarPlay, wireless charging, Sunroof, partial autonomous driving assist.
Ora Good Cat Front Console
The CarPlay display is big (and wide). Apple Maps can even detect that the car is an EV and overlays EV charging stations all over the map. Apparently it can even take range information from the car and warn you if you are too far from the nearest charging station, but I didn’t dare test that out.
CarPlay on Ora Good Cat
Apple Maps showing EV charging stations
Anyways, this is not a car review, so I will now focus on the EV aspects of the drive.
The Drive
The first thing that comes to mind when driving an EV for the first time is – power. It is unlike anything I have ever experienced. I had driven high-end ICE cars and this low-end EV blows them out of the water. The torque is instantaneous, linear and never-ending. If the cheapest EV feels like this, what do the premium EVs feel like?
Overtaking on highways is a breeze. Just a tap of the accelerator and the car races ahead, pushing you back in its seats. I pushed the car up to 180kmph and it still felt like it had more torque left.
However, all this was marred by range anxiety. I couldn’t help but notice the range indicator all the way to the beach, counting down kms as we drove. Am sure seasoned EV drivers have trained themselves to not notice these things too much, but it was always on my mind. I even felt guilty playing music – will it discharge the battery even faster? The biggest power draw (after driving), though, is the AC. It easily takes away 20-30% of the promised range.
While on the way to the beach, we stopped at a gas station to pick up some coffee. There was an EV charger there so I decided to top up for 10 minutes. Unfortunately the charger was out of service. Bad sign.
Charging
We reached the beach exhausting 60% battery with 40% left. I immediately went to the charging station I had decided on in advance. Fortunately, there was an empty slot. Charging the car was easy. I had already downloaded the EA Anywhere app and a quick scan of the QR code opened up the door on the side with the charging cable. The app guided me through the rest of the process and I was up charging in no time.
EA Anywhere charging progressEA Anywhere charging summary
This was a 40KW DC charger so I went from 40% to 95% in less than an hour. There are faster DC chargers available as well (I couldn’t find one near the beach) but most other chargers are AC and much slower.
Ora Good Cat charging
Technically I could have left my car to charge and gone to the beach (the app would have notified me when charging was finished), but I was afraid someone would disconnect the charger so I hung around. Later I found out the charger gets locked while charging and cannot be removed without stopping manually from the app. There’s also an overtime fee if you don’t disconnect the charger within 5 minutes of finishing charging.
Fast charging an EV is a dramatic affair. The EV’s cooling system is on full blast, the charger is blowing wind like a hurricane. An MG4 in the next bay overheated twice and stopped charging.
While returning, I was more frugal with performance and drove steadily at 90. I needed to return the car with at least 40% charge, so I was a little anxious, still. I even switched off the AC for the last few kms when the charge dropped below 50%. Luckily, I was able to return the car with 46% battery left.
Overall, driving an EV was both fun and stressful. I have never driven anything quite like it. However, the stress is too much for someone like me who already suffers from anxiety. But I am sure the second time will be easier than the first.
So I upgraded from my iPhone 12 Pro to an iPhone 14 Pro. Here’re my takeaways after 1 day:
The camera module is huge. There’s a perceptible slope to the phone when lying flat. The phone looks stupid without a case. Like it has sprouted a tumour.
Camera bump without caseCamera bump with case
But the cameras take very nice macro images. Will get creative with this in the days to come.
Orange Macro, iPhone 14 ProFabric Macro, iPhone 14 Pro
It is and feels heavier than 12 Pro. I am glad I didn’t get the iPhone 14 Pro Max, which I almost did. My little finger is already suffering.
FaceID is noticeably faster.
The dynamic island is cool. Even the parts with the FaceID sensor and the camera are touch sensitive. Hope more apps develop cool features for it.
Music, Dynamic Island
Charging, Dynamic Island
Lock Screen, Dynamic Island
Although, the notch on the older iPhones had become invisible to me, I still can’t un-see the dynamic island. Also, the Dynamic island sits a bit lower on the screen compared to the older notch, so app content starts even lower. This change is just barely perceptible.
The always on display is cool. Time will tell how much battery it uses up.
The display is cooler (as in colour temperature). I think my iPhone 12 Pro Display was unnecessarily warm.
The 120Hz display difference is visible, especially during screen animations and when using the 12 Pro.
Will sell the iPhone 12 Pro once my eSIM situation is sorted out, hopefully in March 2023.
For many years now, I have been a firm believer in having a cohesive, seamless technological experience. I don’t like mixing technologies/products from different ecosystems, as they never work as well. For many years, I had heavily invested in Microsoft’s ecosystem and products. When Windows Mobile croaked, I had to make a decision and I went with Apple. Since then, I have moved almost all of my services to Apple’s ecosystem & am enjoying the comforts of Apple’s Walled Garden.
To lock myself completely in this garden, I also had to move all my family members inside it. Over many years, I was successful in doing so. Below is how life is like, living inside Apple’s Walled Garden:
Large collection of movies available, especially in 4K HDR.
Maps/Navigation
Apple Maps
Not as good as Google Maps, but at least they don’t track my movements.
Audio/Video Calling
Facetime
Unparalleled quality, supports Spatial audio and Memojis.
Browser
Safari
Very fast & responsive .
Notes
Apple Notes
Functional, supports sharing notes with family.
Password Management
iCloud Passwords
Can detect and alert user to compromised passwords. Also has a TOTP generator.
Health
Apple Health
Very intuitive and supports data inputs from a huge range of apps and services.
Home Automation
Homekit
Large number of Homekit devices available on the market. They all work seamlessly without separate apps.
My Walled Garden
It does take a decent amount of money to enter this walled garden, but once you’re in, the recurring costs are not high. Most of their services are decently priced (and can be shared with family) and devices last for years and have a decent resale value.
It was the day after Diwali 2019 in Gurgaon. Because we Indians cannot celebrate festivals without polluting at least 1 element of nature, the AQI was 1999. I already had air purifiers (Different makes) in all the bedrooms, but it was getting difficult to breathe so we decided to get one for the living room.
We had had a very good experience with the Xiaomi 2S, so we decided to get another one for the living room. Headed out to Ambience Mall (I miss you so much) and went straight to the Xiaomi store. We had already decided what to buy, so I asked the sales guy to bill one for us. Instead, he laughed at us and said “Stock hi nahi hai to kaha se du”. (We don’t have stock where do I give it from?). Angry at his rudeness, we decided to get the Dyson TP03 (Also known as Dyson Pure Cool Link) instead. Surely, compared to the Xiaomi (₹7999) the Dyson (₹29999) would surely be much better? How wrong we were.
Here’re my views after using it for >1 year
+ Is Stylish, looks nice in the living room + Setup is easy and app is very nice + App can show historical AQI data – Can only show AQI on a scale from 1-10 (Both the tiny display & the app). No other details – Is noisy – Doesn’t really purify very well or fast. On most days, it couldn’t keep up with outside air leaking in – Since it throws air straight at the user rather than up in the air, in winters it becomes uncomfortable
At the end of the day, I think the company’s Air Multiplier technology is not really suitable for air purifiers. Basically, if the fan draws “X” amount of air from the pedestal (and via the HEPA filter), it draws 15*X amount of air from the back of the air multiplier which doesn’t pass the filter at all. So at any point of time, only 6.66% of air thrown by the purifier is clean/has passed through the filter, compared to 100% for traditional purifiers.
All of this results in a lot of air flow in the (already very cold) room but very little purification. My impression of all this is that Dyson has over-engineered its purifiers for the simple purpose of purifying air. I feel terribly guilty for not buying 2 Xiaomi purifiers for the same price as this and still have cash left over.
