Inspiration

My Experience Using Apple Watch for 5 Years and Apple’s Gamification Strategies

Mandar Apte Apple, Apple iOS, Apple watchOS, Apps, Art & Design, Company, Hardware, Inspiration, Personal Experience, Reviews, User Experience Design Leave a comment

In 2019, I bought myself an Apple iPhone 11 Pro 256GB and Apple Watch 5.

I have used an Apple iPhone 5s with 16GB since 2016. But I was dissatisfied with the storage that it allowed me to use. Out of 16GB, 10GB was the operating system, 2GB was for Apps that were able to fit it, 2GB was for Photos that I captured, then I had to delete to make space for the next ones, and 2GB was for other apps’ data.

It was total dissatisfaction with the Apple iPhone 5s.

In the year 2016, I had sciatica. So I used to walk for 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the evening or night. So I just walked 850 kilometres in a month to eliminate sciatica pain. I used to maintain my diary of walking approx kilometre completed in a day/week/month/year. But I was out of sync with my blood pressure, heart rate, calories burned etc.

When Apple iPhone 11 Pro and Apple Watch 5 got released impressed with features like ECG, Fitness app, and Health app capabilities. And I choose 256 GB storage for my iPhone as that’s what I require to sustain all photographs, music, videos and other data for a year or two without deleting it.

I used Apple Watch daily for three years to track my outdoor walking exercises, ECG, Heart Rate Monitoring, Calory burning, Exercise hours tracking, Standup Hours tracking, receiving notifications, receiving phone calls on my watch, reading SMS/Messages on my watch itself etc.

I was thrilled.

But one day, I broke my Apple Watch’s Crown or Wheel. I was devastated. I contacted Apple Service Centre. They said Apple Watch is unrepairable. And you are out of warranty too.

(more…)

Continue Reading Post

A Modern Hindu Brahman Scholler in America & His Salary in USD Affecting His Religious Beliefs

Mandar Apte College & Institute, Hindu Culture & Sanatan Dharma, India / Bharat / Hindusthan, Inspiration, Maharashtra, Mumbai, Personal Experience, Reviews 1 Comment

A Way of American Life: My First Experience of Indian Citizen Going Abroad

Almost 22 years ago I was a student at the Sir J. J. School of Applied Art. I was learning BFA Applied Art (Advertising & Marketing)

On the same campus, there was the Sir J. J. School of Art & Sir J. J. School of Architecture.

One story that I experienced and was inspired by was about one Sir J. J. School of Art final-year graduate student who got hired by Disney Animation Studios in America. We all Applied Art students went to meet him shake his hand and saw his sketchbook. We were amazed by his achievements as Disney just doesn’t take Indian Art Students out of graduation as their employment standards and quality of work that they require are high. Disney normally takes Animator with 20 Years of hardcore Animation Industry Experience. But one day out of the blue same J. J. student returned from America after 6 Months as he was depressed saying no Disney Studio colleague said hi to him or waved in gesture in recognition of his existence in the company. It was the year 2001 at that time there was no iPhone, WhatsApp, Messenger, or Instagram to talk with his parents and siblings. So he was lonely at the tender age of 22 years. This is the psyche of a young man who went to America for a better quality of life than to be in India forever.

(more…)

Continue Reading Post

I am married now, And here is how I choose the perfect spouse for my life.

Mandar Apte Announcements, Apps, Hindu Culture & Sanatan Dharma, India / Bharat / Hindusthan, Inspiration, News, Personal Experience, Reviews Leave a comment

It was the year 2012 when discussions about my marriage started happening in my home. Proposals of engagement between the prospective bride and me arrive every month or in other’s marriage ceremonies. So I started thinking and planning about it.

My society, school or college friends were getting married at that time. But something strange things were happening in their married lives. My seven friends, including girls and boys, were having a divorce for unknown reasons.

  1. One girl was proposed to on Facebook she accepted it when they had their real-life engagement ceremony. Unfortunately, her groom’s previous girlfriend showed up to stop that engagement as the groom had been having an affair with her for the last three-four years, So my friend felt heartbroken and betrayed and cheated.
  2. One of my male friends was married to a girl who never cooked or did home-related tasks or never showed the night at home after time out. Then when my friend encountered her for asking about divorce and breaking the marriage, she told him she would launch a law suite and a police case for defamation, sexual harassment and abuse. Moreover, she wanted marriage alimony of 50 lakhs.
  3. One of my friend’s husband was not doing any job and was physically abusing her as she was earning a thousand times more than him.
  4. One of my friend’s husbands was unfaithful and had multiple extramarital affairs.
  5. One of my male friends had multiple sexual encounters with his female friends before marriage, so he wanted a bride that accepted that allowed them to have sexual encounters outside of marriage after marriage.
  6. One of my friends lost his job because of the financial crisis or recession in the year 2008. Then somehow, his engagement broke as the bride stopped talking with him and her parents. But after two or three months, he got a job in a better company with a more excellent salary. So if the bride understood the situation of a lost job, then disengagement of marriage would not have happened.
  7. One of my friend’s brides was suspicious and doubtful about having affairs in office. So she broke the engagement, and he was heartbroken as there was no clear communication between the bride and her family. So then he got married after one year to a different and more perfect girl.
(more…)

Continue Reading Post

International Women’s Day and the Significance of Indian / Hindu Sanatan Sanskriti or Culture

Mandar Apte Hindu Culture & Sanatan Dharma, India / Bharat / Hindusthan, Inspiration, News, Personal Experience Leave a comment

Christianity or Muslims don’t have goddesses. God Mohammed had multiple wives even from teenagers. Jesus Christ was crucified and then declared god after that torture. After Christ’s death, his daughter supposes to be a priest but then leaders don’t allow that.

But in Hindu Culture we have Goddess Sita, Parwati, Laxmi, Sarvasti and more who are worshipped for their diety and deeds.

So in India, we are already worshipping and celebrating women’s lives for more than millions of years.

But in today’s world women are made to believe they are victims of Male Dominance or Patriarchy or Brahmin Patriarchy in society. New digital media make women believe in playing victim cards.

(more…)

Continue Reading Post

My Solution to my year-long back pain and health issues

Mandar Apte Inspiration Leave a comment

Since I started my health and fitness journey, I have been facing issues with tremendous back pain and mobility.

As you may have guessed already, I started walking, but the pain was not going anywhere whatever I did.

I took physiotherapist assistance, machine exercises, long distance and long time walking but with no relief.

But one day, I just turned off the air conditioner for the whole night in my room for one or two weeks, and somehow, my back muscle was relieved, and I had no pain or muscle stiffness issues. But after that week, I turned on the air conditioner for the next three-four days, and the back pain was back again.

(more…)

Continue Reading Post

My Health Journey Continues!

Mandar Apte Inspiration Leave a comment

Read ‘Part 1’ of My Health Journey:

My success story of being fat to fit in 4 months by walking almost 2,000 kilometres in 4 months & 30 kilometres daily…!!!

I have just stopped the sugar intake, which was coming through tea & coffee. I was consuming more than 6 to 7 tea coffee in a day. I was taking two spoons of sugar per cup, but after consulting my nutritionist, I started taking one scoop. But I made up my mind to take no sugar with coffee and use more amount of coffee itself for taste. So for tea, I started taking jaggery / गुळ for sweetness and flavour.

(more…)

Continue Reading Post

Why typing Devanagari Alphabets (Marathi, Sanskrit, Hindi) on a personal computer is so difficult? And why typing Devanagari in Latin is so easy and preferred by many?

Mandar Apte Art & Design, India / Bharat / Hindusthan, Inspiration, Maharashtra, Mumbai, News, Personal Experience, Typography Leave a comment

Introduction & Background

I was planning to write this blog post for the last many years. I was facing this issue since I had my first Microsoft Windows Operating System-based computer in the year 2002. And after that, it got solved partially on Mac in the year 2008. And I faced the issue of Marathi on the web when I had my website mandarapte.com in the year 2010 and then my community Marathi website chitpavankatta.com in the year 2012.

The idea of writing this blog post or writing documentation about why we face the problem of typing Marathi / Sanskrit / Hindi with Devanagari Script on a computer got more important when some category of journalists or people who started false propaganda to tell the Marathi population at large that Devanagari Script for the Marathi language is no more relevant anymore rather we should abandon Devanagari Script Alphabets and start using Latin Script to write the Marathi Language. An example given by these people was that of the young generation who are writing or chatting or texting on their mobile phone using Facebook, Twitter or Instagram that they use Latin script to write Marathi than using Devanagari Script.

At that time I attended a few lectures on Devanagari Calligraphy and Typography where I met an important person like Mr Mukund Gokhale from Pune who had done extensive work in building Marathi Typewriter with his two-three seniors in his field. He also worked with popular calligraphers, and typographers to bring Devanagari onto the computer i.e. designing popular Devanagari fonts to be used on Computers. At that time I was working at IITB as a web designer. After that, I met Mukund Gokhale at his Pune home to discuss why Marathi Typing is so difficult and why it is targeted by anti-nationals who have no linguistic background to speak about abandoning the Devanagari script itself. We discuss it at length he even showed me software that he has developed with his developer tech support to design Marathi-based digital artworks and designs. It was his initiative to create an alternative solution to Adobe Photoshop / Adobe Illustrator which doesn’t support Devanagari Script in the year 2014/17. And now it’s the year 2021. Because of these long conversations on phone or personally meeting each other and I even developed the Devanagari Learning app for iPhone, iPad and Mac.

When this propaganda was started by abusing the Marathi language and falsely showcasing its irrelevance in today’s world. I talked with popular Hindu Orators who were tirelessly working to stop this propaganda. So people like me were middlemen between people like popular Hindu orators and calligrapher/typographer Mukund Gokhale to share knowledge and know-how between them and connect the dots.

So I am going to write here my observation that I got to learn while talking with Mukund Gokhale and some observations are of my capacity as I am myself a designer and developer too who want to talk and design/develop in Marathi.

(more…)

Continue Reading Post

My success story of being fat to fit in 4 months by walking almost 2,000 kilometres in 4 months & 30 kilometres daily…!!!

Mandar Apte Inspiration Leave a comment

My success story of being fat to fit in 4 months by walking almost 2,000 kilometres in 4 months & 30 kilometres daily…!!!

A few things to clarify this blog post is all about my health; I was at my peak health condition in the year 2001 / 04. That was my college years when I was doing bodybuilding, weight lifting & 12 kilometres of walking daily. But I had one bad habit: eating 100 grams of Jalebi’s daily. If you don’t know what Jalebi is, it is 90% Sugar & 10% of Maida, i.e. Wheat Flour approx.

But then, after my post-graduation, I got a job in an IT Company as a Graphic Designer. By that time, all my exercises were stopped. I had almost two spoons of added sugar milk coffee five times daily. Then some food at 4 pm to be exact. So it was a very unhealthy lifestyle period in my life.

I gained weight from 75 kilograms to 108 kilograms, from fit to fat, in 5 years.

So after 3 to 4 jobs in 2016, I got tremendous back pain, so that was my realisation point: I should do something about my health. I also got advice from relatives that stop doing the job and concentrate on my health first.

So on 1st January 2017, I started walking again daily for 2 hours, approximately 15 kilometres at a stretch. I started maintaining my daily diary of walk routines which I have been doing for the last six years. Nothing new but from 22nd February I started walking 2 hours twice daily, i.e. 4 hours & 30 kilometres daily. Till today 14th May 2017.

(more…)

Continue Reading Post