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Apple Recruiting Specialized Engineer to Focus on Apple Watch Clock Faces
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Heck, I would love it if it looked like this smartwatch:
How on earth is that more modern? And those things look like crap in person; sorry to say...
I was just thinking of this earlier today. I'm sure there's a bunch of people on here who can, somehow, think of reasons why "complications" on a lock screen is a bad idea just because Apple says so, but it's probably the biggest thing I've wanted since I switched to iPhone 4 years ago.
They don't even have to be complicated (pun?). Just basic info similar to what the AW's complications offer. You could add, remove, and rearrange things like weather, world clocks, activity info, etc. that would be displayed on your lock screen when you have no notifications. Very similarly to how the countdown timer currently displays on the lock screen. I'm actually dumbfounded that they haven't done this yet.
I don't think you have to arrange for anything. They're already on there, waiting. You can see them by force-pressing on the current face.
Oh gosh.
For the benefit of the people who don't realise you're obviously taking the piss, I shall post the following.
Some users would like to be able to set up and arrange their watch faces into a particular order. They appear at present in an order specified by Apple from left to right and, beyond that, any faces created by the user go on the right hand side. In chronological order. If I had two faces I used a lot, and some photo faces I used rarely for specific purposes, the two faces could potentially be at opposite ends of a lengthy list and arranging them would save time if they were next to each other.
Apple engineer: "We need to allocate R&D budget to help improve battery time and..."
Jony: "Rubbish! We need to make it thinner, because that is what customers really want. So we have to invest R&D into creating smaller and thinner batteries.."
Tim: "Let's just hire artists to create more watch faces. People will buy this!"
Jony: "Rubbish! We need to make it thinner, because that is what customers really want. So we have to invest R&D into creating smaller and thinner batteries.."
Tim: "Let's just hire artists to create more watch faces. People will buy this!"
They can have more then one engineer working on the product, i.e., a team for watch faces, and a team for the internal design and improvement.
One of the major things lacking on the apple watch is watch faces. When it was announced they made it sound like we'd see alot more watch faces then we currently do. So adding more selection will definitely help in that department.
You might be interested to learn that the people claiming that they don't wear watches anymore are not the same people knocking the aWatch for not looking like a traditional watch.
They do come in an order pre-installed but if you add more with different complications it just throws them on the end.
Heck they delivered it with three less watch faces than they announced!
Took them 6 months after the release to add them back to what they announced a year earlier. The "engineer" should have been hired and working a year before that. Heck, they should have hired a guy in Switzerland and payed him out of that bag of cash they can't bring back into the US without paying high taxes on. It's not like he needs an office next to Jony Ive to design watch faces and refine the interface.
I mean it's called the Watch! Seems to me the expectation is that telling time is a major feature of the thing deserving of some dedicated resources. At least as much as Apple put into the iPod nano 6 years ago!
Thanks for the clarification. Sorry to @Mac 128 .
If you look at the Apple Hermes watches they run about $150 over the the Apple Stainless Steel Links watch. I suspect that Apple is making a lot of money off the partnership. I also look at this from a fashion perspective. You look at the close at many retailers like Target or wherever and they always have an "exclusive line" from some well known celebrity. This seems like the way Apple is going and it allow them to control the experience. On the other hand the way you are suggesting would allow a third party developer to submit and post a watch face that might sell for $0.99. Apple makes almost no money from that and gives up control on the experience - even if only a little. This seems counter what Apple does and is why I just think they won't go there. Mind you, I do think it would be great for people to get what they want. I could see theme based faces connected to movies or cartoon characters, etc. It may be my blinders are on tight today, but it may get a bit cold before Apple allows that.
Yep, I was disappointed and continue to be over the lack of watch face options. I like my apple watch but overall, I think they need to get off the snide and provide more options.
They could just drop the SDK on the dev network and say have at it to the masses. A pool of 20,000 minds greater than we'll say 100 (not sure of team on this). Lets have it 1000....I would still favor the the 20K route.
Apple is suffering from their control here. I can understand they don't want "stupid" or "bad" watch faces if a concern. But...this concern if I am right...backfires. Freelance artists, devs, and such out there have done wonders in the tech industry.
They see the directions the vendor may not. And they don't have a project manager saying that is a bad idea and end of discussion. 3rd party Devs put it out there...let the people decide.
Probably a weak analogy but put it out there anyway. Game industry for some games keeps things alive with giving modders the tools they need to do things with the game they never foresaw. Does it open the game up to the obligatory naked or nude mods? Yes. Does it have some modders do greater things with the game? Also a yes. Latter saves the day for many games.
Also a bit leary of the mechanical look for this. Mainly for apple watch buyers. Call me jaded, say I need tin foil hat but if they go down this route...I'd see product line stratification. Put another way....the cheaper route of the sport watch would not get this. This based on on the only classic mechanical smart watch design I know of is from tag Heuer (others please add more if I am lacking info here). I will let those interested google that and its price. Classic and mechanical look and feel can come at a price. My swiss army is a "cheap" one at about 500 USD according to site. And its just a mechanical watch. Neatest feature it has is when the battery is about to die the second hand will jump a few seconds consistently (it won't tick every 4 seconds, it will wait and skip to the 4 second hop) to give the visual sign its about to run out of juice.
I agree and its baffling why they'd create a watch that allows different watch faces, and then locks it down. Adding insult to injury they themselves don't really do much with that feature.
I was led to believe we'd be seeing custom watch faces from developers when they announced the watch, but clearly that's not the case.
No worries. Clearly I misunderstood your original point as well.
However, im still not in agreement. I doubt Apple is making any more money off the Hermes partnership than if they sold a stainless watch on their own, without the Hermes strap. My guess is Hermes keeps everything above the Watch retail price for their brand name and band. Apple may sell a few thousand more watches sooner than they otherwise would have, but the real value to Apple is selling a watch in a high end fashion boutique to a select customer who may not have even heard about the watch otherwise.
But let's look at the math. For the sake of argument, let's say Apple makes $300 on every Hermes watch it sells, less manufacturing costs, and let's say they've sold 5,000 watches. That's roughly $1.5 million gross, out of which they have to pay all the expenses to market, package, warehouse and distribute the watch.
Now take a $.99 watch face on which Apple takes 40%. And let's say there's a particularly popular watch face that sells to almost the entire 10 million estimated installed user base. That's $4 million PROFIT right there. No costs to cover at all. No matter how you cut it, Apple may not make as healthy a margin, but it's raw profit with the potential to far exceed the actual sales of the watch. Customers may not own more than the one band that comes with their watch, but chances are they will download at least one watch face.
Who knows what Apple will do here, but they've already lost control of the bands. Anybody can market a band for the watch, no matter how ugly it may be. For Apple to take the watch down an exclusive path seems short sighted. Yes they are introducing software to allow multiple pairing for watches with one device, and that's welcome for those who have a gold Sport and a Hermes. But the idea that if someone wants a Kermit the frog watch face they have to buy the Muppets edition watch is kind of silly. and while I sort of understand the Hermes watch, with their high quality leather bands, what's Burberry going to offer besides a brand name and a plaid band? Sure I can imagine someone paying a premium for that -- I bought a black MacBook for a $200 premium. But to do that in order to get a different watch face, especially if they don't want the band? Just how many customers are going to do that? I suspect Apple will sell very few watches for that purpose alone. And based on my little math excercise above, earn nowhere near as much they would by just selling those watch faces freely, for even $.99 a pop. And the irony here is that the watch face is the least visible aspect of the watch, seen almost exclusively by the user, while the most highly visible feature (outside of the featureless square black glass face) is the band, which can make or break the aesthetic of the watch -- and the most customizable part of it.