Customary Apple Keynote Post

Back to watching these live. Last couple of years with classes, I don't think I saw any of the videos live apart from WWDC. But then again, there's something to be said about the fact that this is the 19th iPhone introduction keynote. I don't know about others, but I am a bit bored. I can't watch feign interest for an event that's been happening like clockwork.

Don't get me wrong, I still like the new iPhones, the Air looks ridiculously good (barring the camera bump), but the fact remains that these videos are winnning no one over. People will buy a new iPhone when their old one is no longer good. Everyone has their own cadence. Some buy every 3 years, some every 5, but at the end of the day, if you're an iPhone person you pretty much know it, and if you aren't you know that too. Nothing that Apple introduces is likely going to convert an Android user who was holding out for one killer feature that the iPhones didn't have.

So yea, that's my two cents on this.

Photo of the Day: Coffee with Newspaper

Was catching a break between grueling work sessions, accidentally captured a cool shot.

Missed Post: Next Level Burger in SF is pretty Next Level

Next Level Burger in SF is a great little place for burgers. They're all vegan, and have a good selection of options, not just Beyond Meat options. Love their Bean Burger. I feel like there aren't enough vegan burger places in US, which is a shame, since this is a fun occasional treat. Something I miss from India.

Fun is a valid reason.

Normalise saying “because it’s fun”, “because I like it” “because it’s so cool” as valid reasons for the “why” behind design choices.

Much better than using highfalutin and obscure language that doesn’t tell anyone anything because it’s meaningless fluff.

Not saying design decisions shouldn't be more than just aesthetics, they absolutely should.

But I don't get why that translates into the need to give everything meaning, when clearly some decisions are purely aesthetic.

Some thoughts on the way smartphone addiction is presented and portrayed

Got sent a video recently on how we need to get away from our phones. And got reminded of the frequent patterns that come up with the attention economy critique. These almost-PSAs are problematic for one major reason. Instead of telling people why the smartphone attention economy is designed the way it is, and what makes it addictive and what are its consequences (much like what the anti-nicotine ads have done); these videos focus on targeting the person using it. All the blame is put on the user. It's their fault that they're on the phones. It's their fault they're being driven to slot machines.

This is unfair. Most consumer Smartphone apps are "designed" to keep people hooked on to the app. Using deceptive patterns and habit loops to carrot and stick the user into staying hooked to the apps is somehow not a problem worth addressing but somehow people falling for it, is. It's a classic case of victim blaming.

Most screen time software is also designed on the same pattern of negative enforcement. Punishing the user with screen time limits vs actually encouraging healthier habits. There are three ways to solve an addiction. Take away what someone is addicted to; replace it with a less harmful addiction; encourage healthier habits and strive for long term lifestyle changes. Somehow design solutions for smartphone addiction are restricted to the former two, and not on the latter part of encouraging healthier habits which is shame, because it's the only type of solution genuinely treating people with respect rather than deriding them for their choices or habits.

Why do I care? I wrote an entire thesis trying to solve the problem using the "encourage healthier habits for long term lifestyle changes".

A London Memory

At a recent dinner, we were all going in rounds sharing their one london memory. When the question passed on to me, I was a little perplexed, since most of my London memories were unremarkable. But then I remembered how much I enjoyed walking across the city, it was the first time I was really enjoying walking.

So, that's that. My London memory is the walks I had there.

Replicating the real world vs the real world

For as long as computers have existed, technologists, designers and engineers have been trying to replicate the real world in a screen. Be it paper, the look of a calculator, the texture of leather, the motion of objects, entire life-like 3D worlds, you name it. The goal has been to have the computer blend into our surroundings.

But one of the interesting side effects of that "replicating the real world" has become a field of its own. Selling the illusion of reality has become more valuable than actually augmenting our reality.

When I see the future of computing, I believe the next computing revolution will be when we stop emulating the world around us, and start augmenting it, i.e. making our every day lives better with or without technological interventions. Does that mean AR glasses? No. Not at all, AR Glasses are merely a single way to augment reality. There are a million other-ways we can do that, without having to have privacy invasive computers. And something also tells me, the next computing revolution will also be around dedicated tools for dedicated tasks; not one general purpose tool for all tasks.

Beginnings of a new blog post.

Macro Photography?

Is this macro-photography? Stumbled upon this rather cool pattern at a restaurant recently.

P.S. Crunch season with app stuff, so posts are gonna be slim for the next few days.

Pinsa Rossa in SF is a top tier Pinseria

Pinsa Rossa in SF is excellent. Their Pinsa's are perfectly baked with the right amount of hydration, perfect fermentation, and a process that seems to put craft over looks. The result is a light weight, digestable Pinsa that stays true to the Pinsa romana legacy. 10/10 would recommend.

P.S. Love how their Burrata came "injected" with Olive Oil. Fun touch.

Drowning in a sea of work

In what's a very odd turn of events, I find myself, over-worked, and exhausted from trying to find a proper job; all at the same time. I have so much to do, so little time and everything seems to be top priority right now. Tense few weeks.

Gas powered ovens are criminally underrated

Baked Pizza in a gas powered oven after 1.5 years yesterday and was blown away by the jump in quality from the Ooni Volt (the industry leader in electric ovens); the amount of moisture loss in an electric oven is insane. I've been putting peaches on the Pizza recently, and I put them yesterday too. Except the difference was day and night, because the oven was partially open, the pizza went in and came out in like 90 seconds, the Pizza was quality was so much better! The peaches actually tasted fresh, they felt they were part of the Pizza rather than something completely dried out. The same was true for every other topping in yesterday's pizzas.

We often mention about the heat in a gas powered oven, but it's also the fact that it doesn't significantly reduce moisture content that makes the Pizzas so much better.

This blog is 19 years old!

Woohoo! VirtuosoVidit is 19 years old today. It was my first blog; primarily started it to have a "website" of my own, to feel like I made something on the internet too. I was 11 years old then and had no idea how to write articles and blogs. But it seeemed cool so I tried. Can't believe this thing's still on.

Recently I realised, I haven't shared much of my life on this blog in the last 19 years. So here's a recap.

Starting 2007, when I took the next natural step after writing blogs; i.e. writing and designing a full blown magazine for school students. I then designed games, and apps, completed my undergrad in between that, got a life changing scholarship, presented to Tim Cook, burnt myself out, learnt how to bake Pizza, and most recently graduated from UC Berkeley.

Nobody is reading anything

Getting someone's attention in 2025, is an uphill task. Over the last twelve months I have redesigned my portfolio, I have written 10+ blogposts on my professional blog, I have started to put out content on LinkedIn, Instagram and whatnot, I have burnt myself out writing things.

But I have not gotten readers. Across the total of 7000 views this year, people generally don't even spend a minute on my blog posts, which on average take about a couple of minutes to read. That's just one data point. My impression is, we're looking at attention spans of less than 20 seconds; for everything. Portfolios need to leave an impression in less than 10 seconds. Posts need to be short. Even Social media content needs to be like a sentence and a really striking picture.

Which then makes me question, where is the room for deep dives. Real content with real research. How does one bring that forward. What's the answer to actually following a process in the age of a 6s attention span?


One of the reasons I started doing really short posts on this blog was this. I wanted to put out something. Just anything without worrying about who reads them.

Maybe I should start Zines again.

Recent blog posts on my tech blog have been a bit of a miss. Nobody's really reading them; I personally have changed strategy more than twice in this year, and yet few have worked. So I have been thinking. What if I made zines again. My old zines were text heavy and absolutely not the right medium for smartphone consumption. But i feel i could do something with the vertical scrolling format in a PDF too. Maybe that should be my blog posts.

So MVDIT TECH BOOK makes a comeback after 6 years of hiatus? Maybe. We'll see.

Is it actually better to not study UI design at all?

Was rummaging through old files, and found one of the early LookUp designs that was very colorful and changed background colors with different modes.

I miss how I could go crazy about my designs when I didn’t study design and didn’t know any better. Back in 2014, I had very little design awareness, I had taken one coursera course and that's about it. So I had no idea what "platform conventions", "consistency" meant. I was just too happy to be designing something. So the first iteration for LookUp was a massive change. It involved crazy colourscheme changes and a completely navy-blue and dark color theme.

Ofourse now I know better and now software must support a 1000 other modes, including light and dark, and every platform has its own convention and want not. It makes me wonder, how much of design education is seeking conformity to norms and how much is it really about expressing yourself.

Consistency is a term that's been borrowed, weaponised and industrialised in teh last few years. From meaning that two similar things should look similar so that people are not confused, it's gone on to mean complete conformity with the interfaces ordained by the company's star designers and the branding that the OS provider uses; more recently it also means taking the fun out of your icons because everything must look the same and everything must support the 10 other modes that the OS provides. Right?

Anyhow. Here's LookUp 2. I had so much fun making this design, more than 10 years ago.

Missed post: More Shader Fun

Missed yesterday's blogpost of the day, as I was working on a major redesign for my app LookUp (which I now realise I haven't talked about at all on this blog) but for the last 13 years I have been working on a dictionary app called LookUp which enables english Learners to build their vocabulary. I am frantically working to ship a major redesign of the app currently. So more on it later.

But here's some fun stuff I did with shaders. I like to think of it as the Liquid from the Liquid Glass. ;)

Philz fall blends are ok.

Had the Vanilla soul the other day, not too bad, nothing extremely special but nothing terrible either, unlike their summer blends which were basically sugar syrup.

A little bit of Notting Hill in the middle of mission

Was walking on Mission, and found these group of houses that were way too remniscent of Notting Hill!

TIL Oracle Park also hosts Soccer (Football) matches

And they host it pretty well! Had a lot of fun watching the soccer game at Oracle Park, SF today. A venue that's usually reserved for Baseball.

Everyone is the Steve Jobs of their own startup

The best quote on Steve Jobs came from one of his biggest rivals, Bill Gates. "So many of the people who want to be like Steve have the asshole side down. What they're missing is the genius part." I wish more people realised that.

Every startup in the silicon valley thinks that they need at least one of them to be Steve Jobs. They play the the asshole, overconfident, uppity designer part to the tee, they will not even acknowledge your presence in the room, unless you have the social clout. The other one has to play the technical nerd guru. Expert in their own right, the Woz to the Jobs so to speak.

This was true 10 years ago. This is true today. The number of idiots who think being an asshole and overconfident about their little products will have them reach some sort of cult status is crazy.

The thing is, it's easy to be the asshole in the room, it's more difficult to be the genius person. Which ironically is the wrong lesson to take from Jobs' life. Steve Jobs was one of the greatest product people to exist on the planet. He knew computers from inside out. He had a vision for what he wanted computing to be, he had the knowledge, and most importantly he spent 40 years of his life doing that; but his personal life was a mess. His behaviour towards others should never be glorified. Like every other person on this planet, him being good at one thing didn't make him an expert at others. I wish more people chose to be as disciplined as him, chose to master their craft as he did. But instead, people wake up one day, and decide they'll just take all the wrong lessons from his life.