Mandar Apte

UI/UX Designer from Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.

Category: Personal Experience

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

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

    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.

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

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

    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.

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

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

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

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

    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.

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  • Males and Females in Human Resource (HR) Recruitment in the Era of Feminism / Illusion of Patriarchy or Illusion of Brahmanical Patriarchy in Brahman Hatread Society

    Males and Females in Human Resource (HR) Recruitment in the Era of Feminism / Illusion of Patriarchy or Illusion of Brahmanical Patriarchy in Brahman Hatread Society

    With the invention of Feminism. The female audience was introduced to the term called Patriarchy and, for Hindu haters Brahmanical Patriarchy. Feminism tells young female audiences to blame Male dominant society for their natural human body periods of pain. They somehow ask why boys should not suffer the same and why just girls or women.

    Even with the disclosure of Twitter Files by Elon Musk. Vijaya Gadde from Twitter also got sued in court for her bias Twitter’s social media administration or moderation. (Vijaya Gadde is an American attorney who served as general counsel and the head of legal, policy, and trust at Twitter. – Wikipedia) I remember her saying, “Smash Brahmanical Patriarchy”, out of nowhere. Why are American companies’ social media heads blaming or shaming Brahmins from India / Bharat / Hindusthan for no harm they did?

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  • My side of the story of selling Apple iPhone apps on the Apple App Store while doing a day job…!!!

    My side of the story of selling Apple iPhone apps on the Apple App Store while doing a day job…!!!

    I am selling apps on Apple App Store since 2012, Tried free apps with excellent sales but no revenue or no Apple iAd revenue or very little. I kept doing that for two to four years. Then I removed all of my apps from the sale and kept my account inactive with no apps on ready for sale for almost one or two years.

    Then Swift language was introduced with support for Unicode while watching Apple’s Keynote presentation, I got the idea of Learning Devanagari Script apps with support for Marathi, Sanskrit and Hindi Languages.

    It got almost 3 months of the year 2016 for me to record 500 audio samples and videos with proper code to get to the level of MVP i.e. Minimum Viable Product.

    Next three years I finished recording audio and designing videos and vector illustrations. So it was a total of 700 Audio Recordings with statements and alphabets (Vowels, Consonants and Barakhadi), and 422 animated videos for stroke by stroke guide. Then almost 500 vector and raster illustrations.

    With Covid and Corona Epidemic and forced leave from March to November I finished and upscaled all of my apps with visual and performance quality for my Mudrakshar, Swarakshar and Chitrakshar apps.

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  • Accion Labs Employee Churn, Their Hiring Process & Corporate Culture. My Professional Experience with Accion Labs.

    Accion Labs Employee Churn, Their Hiring Process & Corporate Culture. My Professional Experience with Accion Labs.

    I worked in AccionLabs for a year. I worked on a single long project for my whole tenure.

    At that time, they used to have offices in Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Bengaluru. And they were supposed to open an office in Pune when I left the company.

    I joined AccionLabs as a Senior User Experience Designer. When I started interacting with my senior staff, who were UX Architects or Project Managers, all were over-stuffed with projects out of their capacity. I was working in the Mumbai office, so I don’t know about office culture in other offices. There was a sense of uneasiness everywhere. Employees were allowed to play cricket outside during office hours. One employee never showed up to work but received a salary for the last four months. My project manager and CTO were rude in every meeting. They will discuss some random employees’ performance and why they should warn them to install PIP (Performance Improvement Program) or why they should have been fired. They were a few billable employees who sat ideal doing nothing.

    It was such a situation that three or four employees resigned and left the company every two or three days. The company ask them to resign but hosts a send-off party somehow out of no shame. Even two colleagues told in the send-off party’s last speech that they had no work since joining or for the previous four months, and the company asked them to resign, so they did. The churn rate was high.

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  • In-depth Review of Matrimony Website by Anuroop Wiwaha (anuroopwiwaha.com)

    In-depth Review of Matrimony Website by Anuroop Wiwaha (anuroopwiwaha.com)

    I have used the Anuroop Wiwaha Matrimony Website for the last four to five years. In addition, I have extensively used their mobile Apple iPhone app and website for my bride search. As a result, I discovered a few points that Anuroop Wiwaha Portal / Company improved upon to help the community get the right matrimony match for their search.

    Observations:

    Few Points that they can improve on.

    Mobile App & Website Portal:

    1. At every event, they talk about having 20,000 Profiles / Accounts of the bride and groom registered on their portal. An average Anuroop Wiwaha account cost is INR 5,000/-.
    2. The user (Bride or Groom) can’t register with a free account as they don’t support free accounts. The user must pay an account fee upfront before registering to the portal. So it gives assurance that the user is at least serious about their search, and even the user has to submit identity proof within seven days of registration. So in a way, it eliminates the possibility of fake accounts or fraud.
    3. Even with this money of 20,000 Accounts * 5,000 Fee, the Bride or Groom Search is cumbersome and hectic. The mobile app is not full fledge as compared to a web portal. They use non-native software technologies for the Apple iPhone app, which takes minutes or sometimes fails to load content and data.
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  • Uber Cabs Invoice Outstanding Payment Alert, A Technical Glitch or Accounting Error

    I just travelled from Mumbai to Thane using Uber cabs. They rounded my bill before tax by 46 Paise. My trip was a cash trip.

    My final cost of the trip after taxes applied was 160.05 INR.

    But when I completed my trip I got notification from the Uber app that I have not paid 5 paise out of 160.05 INR using cash.

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  • Different ways of sustaining as a Music / Video / Creative Content Creator on digital music platforms in today’s age.

    Different ways of sustaining as a Music / Video / Creative Content Creator on digital music platforms in today’s age.

    I just learned that Apple Music pays artists 1 cent (75 Indian paise) for one stream / one audience listens to your song for a single time.

    So if you want to earn $1 (75 INR), the artist should have 100 plays/views by his user/audience.

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