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You really need me to expand upon my "apples and oranges" comment? Really? Wow

Comparing the iPhone UI to the Apple Watch does not work for obvious reasons.

Do I really have to break it in to pieces for you?

So circularity it is in the minds of the designers almost as if it is an unconscious wish that the display was also circular.

Now please understand this bit. Designers have been designing apps with circular elements since the creation of App Store. It's just logical they will do the same for the Apple Watch or any other watch, regardless of their shape . Some with square elements and some with circular elements. IMO the only thing that looks good on circular watch is a face watch. And it's not as almost as if it is an unconscious wish that the display was also circular, nonsense. It's just the way developers design their apps.
 
I still think it should have been round. And don't you come back with "the UI wouldn't work on a round watch" nonsense. If you look at a lot of the design elements that have been built into many of the apps they are already tending towards circularity.

Why are people still persisting with the "watches are supposed to be circular" chestnut? They're not. They've been non-circular for decades. Apple aren't breaking any perceived "rule" about watches, except one conjured from thin air by people deliberately being inflammatory.

http://www.ablogtowatch.com/top-10-the-great-gatsby-era-watches/

These took me all of 10 seconds to find. If Cartier can make a square watch, then Apple sure as %$#@ can.
 

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Why are people still persisting with the "watches are supposed to be circular" chestnut? They're not. They've been non-circular for decades. Apple aren't breaking any perceived "rule" about watches, except one conjured from thin air by people deliberately being inflammatory.

http://www.ablogtowatch.com/top-10-the-great-gatsby-era-watches/

These took me all of 10 seconds to find. If Cartier can make a square watch, then Apple sure as %$#@ can.

I was merely stating that, to me, a circular watch face is more aesthetically pleasing and that people stating it is impracticle due to design considerations are wrong.
 
This is the equivalent of Barack Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

You can't give it a design award before it's released, before it's in peoples' hands and getting used every day in the real world. That's when we will be able to judge how well it has been designed, and not before.
 
I think this first design is growing on me. Function is so key with this thing and clearly the form has followed the function. I personally thought the original iPhone looked silly as a phone...holding a brick to the ear...but in time it grew on me.
 
I think the Moto360 looks better (it isn't the greatest smartwatch, but design-wise I think it looks more sleeker than Apple Watch). The LG G Watch R also looks great and much better than the Apple Watch.

IMHO, I don't think it's fair to let the Apple Watch win since it hasn't been released. Even if they had a final product in their hands, it's only been announced, not released.
 
Why would you need a background in design to have an opinion on a products looks? It's a purely subjective matter, would you ask the same question to someone who thinks it is good looking?

I think everyone is entitled to an opinion about how they think something looks. But when it comes to something like evaluating the quality of the design I think you can make the argument that you need some training to understand what is good design as opposed to what is pretty. I think something could be attractive and not be an impressive design because it is not novel or violates accepted practices, etc. And probably the opposite could be true as well.

I see movies often that I find enjoyable that critics hate. Presumably they know more about the technical aspects of a movie. I just know if I had a good time.
 
You can't give it a design award before it's released, before it's in peoples' hands and getting used every day in the real world. That's when we will be able to judge how well it has been designed, and not before.

It's a competition, not a popularity contest. The judges are not supposed to represent the general populace or use the same criteria of taste as the general populace. You are not the judge in this competition.

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It's plain stupid to judge this thing based off looks. And it does not look great to begin with.

"Looks" is a large part of design. And it is a design competition.
 
There are many circular design elements already in those screenshots even though the display is square. So circularity it is in the minds of the designers almost as if it is an unconscious wish that the display was also circular.

Or, perhaps because these are historical references to "clocks", given that this is a "watch".

Which, I imagine, is why you prefer a circular design-- unconsciously you are fixated on the idea that this is a "clock". Because there is nothing to suggest "circular" about a "display strapped to my wrist."

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Apples and oranges

You really are fixated on round things. :D

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I think everyone is entitled to an opinion about how they think something looks. But when it comes to something like evaluating the quality of the design I think you can make the argument that you need some training to understand what is good design as opposed to what is pretty. I think something could be attractive and not be an impressive design because it is not novel or violates accepted practices, etc. And probably the opposite could be true as well.

I think some people are just rejecting the concept of a design contest outright. Sort of an anti-elitist thing. Because, the idea of a "design contest" in which anyone at all can "vote on their favorite design" seems not really a design contest at all.
 
The real vote that counts is at the point of sale
Then we can all see just how much people like or dislike Apple watch.
I am fascinated to see how this thing actually sells.
 
I was merely stating that, to me, a circular watch face is more aesthetically pleasing and that people stating it is impracticle due to design considerations are wrong.

do you develop apps? cause i sure as hell wouldn't want a circular space to work in. nah uh. i think the word 'wrong' isn't the one you're looking for. 'confusing' maybe? 'not clear to me' perhaps?
 
I was merely stating that, to me, a circular watch face is more aesthetically pleasing and that people stating it is impracticle due to design considerations are wrong.

I agree that circular seems more pleasing - regardless of whether there have been plenty of other rectangular and square watches and clocks, on wrists the dominant form has been round, so that's what we come to expect.

As to impracticality... I differ. It's basic geometry - round peg/square hole. A 42mm diameter circle will fit into a square with 42mm sides. A 42mm-sided square will not fit inside a 42mm diameter circle.

While it's certainly possible to design some apps to maximize use of a circular face, there are others that naturally need to be rectilinear. A circular face of the same width as a square face gives developers a smaller screen to work with (smaller fonts and/or less info and/or smaller images). It's been a loooong time since I took math, but I'm pretty sure that a circular face would have to be 59.4mm in diameter to contain a square with 42mm sides (hypotenuse of square = diameter, right?).
 
I think everyone is entitled to an opinion about how they think something looks. But when it comes to something like evaluating the quality of the design I think you can make the argument that you need some training to understand what is good design as opposed to what is pretty. I think something could be attractive and not be an impressive design because it is not novel or violates accepted practices, etc. And probably the opposite could be true as well.

I see movies often that I find enjoyable that critics hate. Presumably they know more about the technical aspects of a movie. I just know if I had a good time.

But it isn't movie, it's a functional object. What is really required is experience actually using the device. A device designed purely on an aesthetic basis could well be a functional nightmare, in which case it can't be called a successful design by any reasonable definition of the term. For design to succeed, form should be a response to function, not the other way around. For the most part, the negative commenters are missing this basic principle entirely. Many of them think Apple Watch should be circular because they like circular, not because it makes any sense for the function of the device.

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I was merely stating that, to me, a circular watch face is more aesthetically pleasing and that people stating it is impracticle due to design considerations are wrong.

Not impractical, just backasswards design. Fortunately, Apple isn't prone to that.
 
Many people might prefer circular watch/clock faces but we have to remember that the Apple Watch is not a 'watch', it's a 'smart watch'. It is to watches what the iPhone was to cell phones. Flip phones were the preferred design (a la RAZR) for most people when the iPhone came out. How many flip smart phones are there? What works well for analog or 'dumb' digital watches (typically a round design) might not work particularly well for smart watches.

An Apple Watch with a 38mm height (and supposedly a 34.68 mm width: http://ryanpmack.com/files/AppleWatchSizeComparison.pdf) has a surface (screen) area of 1317.84 mm^2 (minus a small border). A circular face that fits completely in the same space has a radius of 17.34 mm (half of the shorter side) with a total surface area of 944.6 mm^2. Even if you go with a larger circular face (38 mm diameter), the watch face surface area is 1134.115 mm^2, a 'loss' of almost 184 mm^2 (14% smaller surface area) for a watch that takes up roughly the same space on a wrist (assuming the watch is worn there). When pixels matter, a square face is better. Maybe Apple with release a round Apple Watch some day, but for a 'smart' device, a rectangular face makes more sense.
 
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I really do get that it's beautifully designed, but I still don't like it. I also don't like the iphone 2g, the iphone 3, or the iphone 6. Maybe I have high standards, maybe I just like rounded corners not edges, who knows. Maybe the Awatch 4 will be the tipping point for this product, I really doubt it's going to be this one.
 
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