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Apple Watch Wins Red Dot 'Best of the Best' Design Award

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Still three weeks away from being released to the public, the Apple Watch has received another design award for Apple ahead of launch, this time receiving the "Best of the Best" designation by the German Red Dot design awards (via aBlogtoWatch).

Previously winning the Gold Award, and being called "an icon", at the International Forum Design awards earlier in March, the Red Dot award counts a second win for the wearable in the design category before its April 24 launch date.

The Apple Watch wasn't alone in the smartwatch category, however, as the MB&F HM6 Space Pirate horological smartwatch also received the "Best of the Best" designation.

The Red Dot jury judged the Apple Watch, and all products in the category, on its functionality, durability, ergonomics, and even "symbolic and emotional content", amongst other criteria. As aBlogtoWatch points out, there's a drastic monetary difference between the two winning smartwatch devices this year, even when comparing the $17,000 Apple Watch Edition to the Space Pirate.
Red Dot design award jurors understandably fawned over what is still, by far, the best-looking smartwatch, even though it isn't on the market yet. Given the limitations of technology, as well as the potential of what can come of connected smartwatches, I think it makes a lot of sense that the Red Dot award jury decided to not only recognize the Apple Watch, but consider it as a "Best of the Best" product.

It's an interesting Best of the Best Red Dot watch design award this year, as, on the one hand, you have the $230,000 MB&F HM6 Space Pirate that is limited to just 50 pieces, and on the other hand, you have the mostly $1,000 and under Apple Watch that could easily have 50 million units on wrists before long.
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The Product Design category of the Red Dot awards celebrates 31 total areas of design, including everything from living room furniture to vehicle accessories, with the "Watches" category getting introduced this year to compensate for the increasingly crowded smartwatch market.

The Product Design category specifically in 2015 had 4,928 entries with only 81 total products receiving the "Best of the Best" award recognition. A gala will be held this June 29 at the Aalto-Theater in Essen, Germany for all of the Best of the Best Red Dot award winners. The winners not only receive the Red Dot designation materials to use on product packaging and marketing, but will have their products displayed in the Red Dot Design Museum in Essen for up to a year.

Article Link: Apple Watch Wins Red Dot 'Best of the Best' Design Award
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2015/04/03/apple-watch-red-dot-design-award/
In before "But the watch is ugly" / "The moto 360 is better" / "But it's SQUARE, not ROUND" type comments.
 
In before "But the watch is beautiful" / "The Apple Watch is amazing" / "But it's SQUARE and FUNCTIONAL" type comments.
 
You'd think all these design companies giving out awards would atleast wait until the watch was out before giving it awards.


For all they know the quartz back could come loose in actual use making it a very poor design. Of course that's unlikely but they should at least wait until it's out and actually buy one to assess.

As it stands this award for the watch just feels like them wanting to grapple on to the Watches publicity and make a name for themselves. "Look everyone, we love the Apple Watch too! We even gave it a reward, please report on us!"
 
KPOM said:
Nice win, but that other recipient does look odd. You can buy 20 Apple Watch Edition models for the price of the Space Pirate.
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Here's another view:

20150402spacepirate.jpg
 
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I am an Apple fan but even I have to roll my eyes at giving a design and functionality award to something that isn't even in the wild yet. Wouldn't it be funny if the thing didn't work?
 
Quu said:
You'd think all these design companies giving out awards would atleast wait until the watch was out before giving it awards.[/I]
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They at least spent time with it in person and aren't judging just on Apple's marketing.

They at least make more rational decisions than the Nobel Peace Prize committee. :D
 
ggibson913 said:
I am an Apple fan but even I have to roll my eyes at giving a design and functionality award to something that isn't even in the wild yet. Wouldn't it be funny if the thing didn't work?
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What's wrong with that? Didn't they give Obama some silly european peace award before he even took office? :D
 
Wow, this doesn't seem premature at all, in fact the timing would indicate this is not at all to influence the launch hype of this product.

Can you at least let it get into the wild before giving it an award? A watch isn't a sculpture, the merit of it's design will be judged by everyday use by every day (well, better-off me-first every day) consumers.
 
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