It is mid-September, which means anyone covering consumer technology is operating strictly on adrenaline, coffee, and sheer muscle memory. In the trade, we call it ‘Tech-tember’, that manic stretch of the calendar where major hardware drops hit faster than you can draft a headline. But catching up with Anand Ahuja right after Apple pulled back the curtain on its new lineup immediately tilted the conversation into a much cooler, cultural lane.
Anand is, after all, the man who helped decode sneaker and streetwear culture for modern India, turning VegNonVeg into a cultural landmark. So when you put a boundary-pushing silhouette like the new foldable iPhone Duo alongside the workhorse iPhone 18 Pro in front of someone whose entire world revolves around form factor, colorways, and daily wearability, the conversation moves past spec sheets into something far more interesting: design, intent, and lifestyle.
Before diving into the hardware, we started on home turf with a personal win of mine: scoring a pair of ASICS Gel-Kayano 14s off VegNonVeg.
Anand laughed, saying, “Okay, good! So you know your shoes. That means you know your shoes! A lot of other people are just looking for a certain hyped product. Not everyone is looking for Gels.”
From there, we jumped straight into the atmosphere around Apple’s latest chapter, the aura of Steve Jobs, and whether a smartphone can truly reach the iconic, daily status of an Air Jordan 1.
Steve Jobs and Apple’s Culture
Fresh off his trip to Apple Park, Anand admitted he went into the mothership carrying a healthy dose of skepticism.
“I’m always hesitant because, you know, I’ve followed Apple and used Apple for so long,” he told me. “I was scared to go and get disappointed. But it matched and surpassed everything. You saw all these things about Steve Jobs that they sort of speak about so proudly.”
In big tech, corporate culture often treats legendary founders as sacred or untouchable relics. Anand found the opposite: an active, living legacy.
“They really don’t shy away from it,” he said. “They’re proud of the design he did. The campus has apple and orchard trees all over, which was part of his vision, what he wanted. Speaking to leadership that’s been there 40 years like Joz (Greg Joswiak), and new leadership that’s fairly recent, like Dr. Sumbul (Desai) on Apple Health, you feel that same consistency across. Joz has more Steve Jobs stories than she does, but that doesn’t change the commitment they have to this vision.”
The iPhone Duo: Functional Tool vs. Statement Piece
Then, the main attraction: the iPhone Duo. While foldables have floated around the tech sphere for a minute, Apple’s take seems specifically engineered around lifestyle rather than brute-force multitasking.
“The Duo is pretty amazing,” Anand noted, having spent hands-on time with it. “One of the guys at Apple called it ‘the most friendly iPhone.’ Because everything about it is about people using it together, how you take photos, how you FaceTime.”
He brought up a familiar routine: calling his parents back in Delhi while his four-year-old son pops into frame. “Normally, either I can see them or my son can see them. Now, all of a sudden, he can see them on the front screen, I can see them, and I can see where I’m pointing. It’s not about the device; it’s about how you use it.”
When I asked if smartphones are crossing that boundary into pure fashion statements, pieces you style an entire look around, Anand resonated immediately.
“That’s a really good question,” he said. “I was thinking about how people will accessorize the iPhones on my flight over. When the iPhone first came out, accessories were very secondary. With the Duo, the cases they made are so good. There’s this Folio MagSafe case that has a stand, this textile case, and it actually makes me want to use the phone more. To your point of expression, it’s going to be really interesting to see how people accessorize it. I actually saw one of the guys at Apple holding a Duo and an Air together, both in white, and they looked so good together.”
Sneakerheads, Decode Your Tech
Naturally, we had to bridge the two worlds. I wanted him to make interesting analogies, because why not!
“The Duo is like an Air Jordan 1,” Anand said without hesitating. “You get a sneaker that’s a daily, but it’s also very special. The first sneaker that comes to mind for the white Duo is the triple-white ’85 Air Jordan 1; they have a low and a high. It’s super clean. An Air Jordan 1 is one of those things where I can travel with it, use it a lot, but still dress it up.”
What about the entry point, the iPhone SE?
“The SE is sort of like a Chuck Taylor,” he said. “A Chuck 70 is super special, universal, for everyone, but it’s a daily.”
And the flagship powerhouse, the iPhone 18 Pro? I pitched him an obvious alley-oop: Gel-Kayano 14s, maybe?
“Yeah, I was going to say! Gel-Kayanos, or New Balance,” he laughed. “Those sneakers that are just so incredibly usable. It’s your daily shoe that you can do 20,000 steps in, go for a run in, but still dress up and look on point. Sonam loves Gel-Kayanos, her and her dad (Anil Kapoor haha) are big Gel-Kayano fans. Me and my brother are more New Balance, the 990 series. It’s just the structure of the shoe.”
The Daily Driver Verdict
So when the boxes land, what stays in Anand Ahuja’s daily rotation?
“The Pro is such a power-user phone,” he admitted. “I used the iPhone Air for a lot of this year, but I switched back to the Pro as my primary. When I’m with the kids, I want that camera. The lens I missed the most on the Air was the 0.5 ultra-wide, especially for selfies with the kids. The Duo has that now, which is great, but the zoom and aperture control on the Pro are still way more advanced.”
As for carrying them, don’t expect him to jam either into raw denim.
“I tend not to keep phones in my pockets much. In London you’re always wearing a jacket, and in Bombay things slip out when you sit down,” he laughed. “I’m a big layering guy, so it usually goes in a light jacket or an iPad pouch. For the 18 Pro, I’ll get the new lanyard. For the Duo, definitely the Folio case. And I want to get the white ceramic Apple Watch to match the white Duo.”
Before wrapping, Anand brought up another milestone that proves his eye for clean lines isn’t slowing down: “Did you see our VNV Samba mule?”
“I did,” I told him. “Looks so clean.”
“Our first collab, so I was really happy about that,” he laughed.
And that was how our conversation went.
