Daring Fireball: Apple Watch Series 3 to Feature 'All-New Form Factor' [Updated]

[enc0re]

Yes! I believe this is a Dieter Rams design?

Exactly! And let's not forget how much success Apple has had in following Rams' designs. For example, in that watch picture do you notice the calendar date display? It's what Apple used for the iPhone calendar display before the iOS redesign. Here are some other examples of Braun/Rams really working out for Apple.

 

[douglasf13]

Exactly! And let's not forget how much success Apple has had in following Rams' designs. For example, in that watch picture do you notice the calendar date display? It's what Apple used for the iPhone calendar display before the iOS redesign. Here are some other examples of Braun/Rams really working out for Apple.

Did you not see my post on the prior page? The Apple Watch is definitely an amalgamation of Newson's Ikepod and Ram's Braun designs. There are quite a few square Braun watches.

 

[Mac 128]

I don't think the Advocates of Round want the rectangular design to disappear; but rather to have it as an added option. 38mm, 42mm, and round. Maybe make the round of such a size that the 38mm fits inside it for legacy apps before they are ported to round.

Of course some apps will look better on round. Think of the fitness tracking. It's round already! And the home screen was clearly designed to work with both round and rectangular interfaces. I wouldn't be surprised if the watch bands weren't also designed with a possible round use case.

It already does. In fact the 42mm display fits almost exactly in a 42mm edged-to-edge round display, as does the 38mm.

It's not ideal in terms of overall look of the watch, but it does allow 3rd party apps to immediately function within the new UI before a developer updates them, to take advantage of the additional room and adapt to the layout. Apple's native apps will of course all look beautiful on the watch. I don't know about you, but I almost exclusively use Apple's native apps as it is.

And you're right, Apple could come up with a single round design in a compromised 40mm size at first since it fits differently on the wrist than a rectangle.

 

[MDePew24]

That holds true for the market penetration of Apple Watch, but maybe It doesn’t when Apple Watch eventually has the market penetration of the Iphone.

The wrist straps don’t seam to be fashionable enough for a market of that size.

If they want to capture the entire market and sink the classic Watch market (which will always exist of course), then eventually they will probably need to sell diferente case designs at different prices and for different ocasions with the same internal hardware.

Or maybe I’m totally wrong, but something will need to change, of that I’m certain.m

If they wanted to compete with a regular watch, correct. I don't think they do.

 

[StyxMaker]

Style and stubbornness. There is a misconception that there is a natural form for wristwatches and that a rectangular face breaks the mold, nostalgia for anachronistic timekeeping (pun very much intended), and a misguided belief that companies are cheaping out by using rectangular displays...

Just to let you know, there is no pun there.

 

[Mousesuck]

If they wanted to compete with a regular watch, correct. I don't think they do.

Well, but If they want to put a smartwatch on the wrist of everybody, and fill their safes like they do with IPhones they certainly would have to compete with the diversity that other brands of regular watches, luxurious or not can offer.

Also, they did sell an $17.000 limited edition gold Apple Watch.

With that price tag, they certainly weren’t marketing It for the common folk.

More for the Patek Philippe, Blancpain, Cartier...buyers.
So at that time they were indeed, although friendly, competing.

The biggest problem is that regular watches have only one main function...to tell time, therefor they are interchangeable. You use the one you like, the day you like and won’t miss a thing.

On the other hand, classic watches and smart watches are not interchangeable, they are two immiscible concepts.
Something gets lost when you leave one of them at home (art, style and uniqueness vs. mass production and information)

Since It makes sense to only own one smartwatch as opposite to multiple regular watches, how not to lose anything with the smartwatch experience, that is the enigma that they have to figure out.
The solution for sure is not the ludicrous priced wrist bands, those are just a pricey bandaid for the problem.

 

[skellener]

Round is better.

 

[kdarling]

Since It makes sense to only own one smartwatch as opposite to multiple regular watches, ...

Speaking of...

I used to switch every day or two between a Moto 360 with link band, and an LG R with leather band whose case I had polished down to all stainless steel.

I wore one while the other charged. This allowed me to continue wearing a watch 24/7, as I have for at least fifty years.

The total cost for both used was less than a single new Apple Watch.

And they got far more attention from their always-on round displays with gorgeous watchfaces, than my daughter's Apple Watch, which was surprising back when the latter was new to the world. Even Apple Store employees would gather to see my round smartwatch.

 

[MDePew24]

Well, but If they want to put a smartwatch on the wrist of everybody, and fill their safes like they do with IPhones they certainly would have to compete with the diversity that other brands of regular watches, luxurious or not can offer.

Also, they did sell an $17.000 limited edition gold Apple Watch.

With that price tag, they certainly weren’t marketing It for the common folk.

More for the Patek Philippe, Blancpain, Cartier...buyers.
So at that time they were indeed, although friendly, competing.

The biggest problem is that regular watches have only one main function...to tell time, therefor they are interchangeable. You use the one you like, the day you like and won’t miss a thing.

On the other hand, classic watches and smart watches are not interchangeable, they are two immiscible concepts.
Something gets lost when you leave one of them at home (art, style and uniqueness vs. mass production and information)

Since It makes sense to only own one smartwatch as opposite to multiple regular watches, how not to lose anything with the smartwatch experience, that is the enigma that they have to figure out.
The solution for sure is not the ludicrous priced wrist bands, those are just a pricey bandaid for the problem.

It's like comparing a home phone to an iPhone. You don't market against a home phone, you market against other smartphones. Don't copy other designs and make what makes financial sense. Not an expensive manufacturing process of making separate shapes. Right now, there are a lot of other round watches. Not as many square. If you want to be unique, don't copy other designs. Many happen to think the current design is stylish.

 

[Music Ambulance]

But based on sales, many think the design is desirable as is so to each their own.

By that logic Bieber's work is profound

All I have to say is irrespective of shape: the gaget shouldn't read as being a gaget.

 

[bunnicula]

same thing can happen in autos in a single year when they change a body style. don't like it, don't upgrade

Feh. I've upgraded each year here so far. I just don't see them pushing these bands as hard as they have and ditching the connector system so quickly this year.

Maybe down the road a bit, but if they do it this year, I'll be surprised.
[doublepost=1502205982][/doublepost]

I don't think the Advocates of Round want the rectangular design to disappear; but rather to have it as an added option. 38mm, 42mm, and round. Maybe make the round of such a size that the 38mm fits inside it for legacy apps before they are ported to round.

Of course some apps will look better on round. Think of the fitness tracking. It's round already! And the home screen was clearly designed to work with both round and rectangular interfaces. I wouldn't be surprised if the watch bands weren't also designed with a possible round use case.

They designed them with being able to use them on a round case as a possibility. It woudn't even be particularly complicated to pull off.

I don't really like round watch faces. Never have. But, I know people like them and if Apple wants more market share, they might want to consider making round cases along with the current, rectangular ones.

 

[kdarling]

It's like comparing a home phone to an iPhone. You don't market against a home phone, you market against other smartphones. Don't copy other designs and make what makes financial sense. Not an expensive manufacturing process of making separate shapes.

Despite Jon Ive's overblown manufacturing videos (which simply showed common methods used by many companies), it is not at all difficult or expensive to manufacture a watch case. Especially in China.

So there's no reason why Apple couldn't come up with a half dozen different square designs to fit the current circuit board layout.

I think it'd boost sales and make people happy.

Right now, there are a lot of other round watches. Not as many square.

That's because people were tired to death of seeing nothing but square smartwatches since Dick Tracy times.

 

[Mousesuck]

It's like comparing a home phone to an iPhone. You don't market against a home phone, you market against other smartphones. Don't copy other designs and make what makes financial sense. Not an expensive manufacturing process of making separate shapes. Right now, there are a lot of other round watches. Not as many square. If you want to be unique, don't copy other designs. Many happen to think the current design is stylish.

I don’t have a problem with the current design, maybe it is a tad fat and they could slim it a bit.

I do have a problem with having the same watch as everybody else, stylish or not.

It is not a matter of round or square, It is a matter of both coexisting so that Apple can appeal to different tastes.

The manufacturing process of selling different cases won’t make them lose money, since they will have a hell lot more of market penetration, they would sell like hell and they would sell with expensive prices.

At least in Europe, the only reason people still have home phones is because they come included with internet contracts for free.

So your house phone example actually goes against what you are saying since cellphones/smartphones where indeed directly or indirectly marketed to destroy home phones, which they did.

 

[Mousesuck]

Speaking of...

I used to switch every day or two between a Moto 360 with link band, and an LG R with leather band whose case I had polished down to all stainless steel.

I wore one while the other charged. This allowed me to continue wearing a watch 24/7, as I have for at least fifty years.

The total cost for both used was less than a single new Apple Watch.

And they got far more attention from their always-on round displays with gorgeous watchfaces, than my daughter's Apple Watch, which was surprising back when the latter was new to the world. Even Apple Store employees would gather to see my round smartwatch.

Sure, but an important part of Apple DNA is the ecosystem.

If you are tired of the look of Apple Watch, you can leave It at home and use another brands smartwatch but you will lose a piece of Apple ecosystem for a couple of days.

Apple still doesn’t have a solution for this...

Since the only option for the user is to own besides AW, another brands smart watch instead of owning more than one Apple Watch with different designs, which of course would be much more profitable for Apple.

Right know there is no reason for owning more than one Apple Watch but there is a reason for having more than one smartwatch, for fashion purposes.

 

[tubular]

Apple fanatic for decades. iMac, iPad, iPod - several of each. The Apple Watch is the first category they've entered where I've just said: no, not feeling it. Go round or go home.

 

[truthertech]

The watch always has been OLED. If you mean iterative improvements, I’m arguing those wouldn’t be enough. We’d need a leapfrog improvement for always-on.



Are you arguing that Apple hasn’t figured out yet how to “shut down or dim” the screen?

And isn’t the display shutting down precisely the current behavior?

They haven't yet implemented a "low power" mode, but that is a likely advance if they implement "always" on feature. That would be very different from display simply going dark.

 

[rogercrocha]

I just want:

1) the watch face to always be displayed. Awkwardly raising my wrist (which only works if I sort of snap it up) or tapping is dumb - this isn't 1976 when we had to deal with LED digital watches.

2) developer access to watch faces. How is it possible that developers still cannot create custom watch faces?

If keeping the form factor "big" and not adding LTE is necessary to provide the battery necessary for these two things, I'll happily forgo a new form factor and LTE.

The Apple designed watch faces are horrible!

 

[tubular]

The Apple designed watch faces are horrible!

I'm not very impressed by them. But I also except Apple to keep a lock on watch faces. Otherwise every branded watch face they have would be swamped by imitators. The only way to get i.e. anything that looks like the Hermes watch face is to drop the bucks. Apple isn't going to change that any time soon.

 

[MDePew24]

By that logic Bieber's work is profound

All I have to say is irrespective of shape: the gaget shouldn't read as being a gaget.

For many, his work is...
[doublepost=1502507857][/doublepost]

I don’t have a problem with the current design, maybe it is a tad fat and they could slim it a bit.

I do have a problem with having the same watch as everybody else, stylish or not.

It is not a matter of round or square, It is a matter of both coexisting so that Apple can appeal to different tastes.

The manufacturing process of selling different cases won’t make them lose money, since they will have a hell lot more of market penetration, they would sell like hell and they would sell with expensive prices.

At least in Europe, the only reason people still have home phones is because they come included with internet contracts for free.

So your house phone example actually goes against what you are saying since cellphones/smartphones where indeed directly or indirectly marketed to destroy home phones, which they did.

I don't think it would really increase sales too much in my opinion. It would go up but not a lot. If you want customizations and uniqueness in your tech/gadgets, Apple isn't the company for you. They are about control and not really allowing customizations. Watch faces is more open than I thought they would make it.

 

[Mousesuck]

For many, his work is...
[doublepost=1502507857][/doublepost]
I don't think it would really increase sales too much in my opinion. It would go up but not a
lot. If you want customizations and uniqueness in your tech/gadgets, Apple isn't the company for you. They are about control and not really allowing customizations. Watch faces is more open than I thought they would make it.

I agree with to a certain extent, Apple brand is not about costumization.

That being said lets not forget that Apple Watch has appeard in multiple covers of Vogue magazine...it is a fashion accessory and it was marketed as fashion accessory and not as one more gadget.
That is one of the reasons it prevailed on top of other smartwatchs.

So if Apple as a company finds that diversifying AW design is the way to go, I don’t think they wound’t do it just because It wasn’t in their DNA till now.

The only way for a company to continue to be influential is to continuously adapt themselfs to new paradigms they create.

Deversifying AW design would:

-Capture the possible buyers that dislike the current design, giving them alternatives.

-Capture the possible buyers who already like the current design but are too fashion conscious, obnoxious or whatever they are to loose there individuality.

-Capture the present owners of AW that would buy another one for fashion purpouses.

-Make it reasonable to own more than one Apple Watch of the same generation. So instead of selling one AW per person they could sell 2 or 3 diferente AW designs of the same gen per person.

-Catter for the luxury watch buyers that spend huge amounts of money on watches because in reality they are buying pieces of jewelry.

 

[MDePew24]

I agree with to a certain extent, Apple brand is not about costumization.

That being said lets not forget that Apple Watch has appeard in multiple covers of Vogue magazine...it is a fashion accessory and it was marketed as fashion accessory and not as one more gadget.
That is one of the reasons it prevailed on top of other smartwatchs.

So if Apple as a company finds that diversifying AW design is the way to go, I don’t think they wound’t do it just because It wasn’t in their DNA till now.

The only way for a company to continue to be influential is to continuously adapt themselfs to new paradigms they create.

Correct, it has been involved in the fashion world but that's not the intended market. It is and always will be a gadget/technology first. If the fashion world picks it up, it doesn't mean they should make that the focus on the product. I'm not saying that a watch can't be for fashion but I don't think Apple is worried about fashion. Especially since MANY celebrities already wear the watch. Seems to work for many high profile people.

 

[DotCom2]

Well we'll find out soon. You've been telling me I've been out of my gourd for suggesting Apple would switch things up with AW this year. I'm glad to see Gruber in this camp too since he's more connected to Apple than anyone here. I don't think he's just looking for headlines here. Again, we'll see, but I'll be especially excited if there is a change and it is round.
It's time for Apple to add some true diversity to the line, not just mix and match bands and different case colors.

I guess it didn't happen.

 

[Technarchy]

Round is better.

Round is overrated.

 

[DeepIn2U]

Well we'll find out soon. You've been telling me I've been out of my gourd for suggesting Apple would switch things up with AW this year. I'm glad to see Gruber in this camp too since he's more connected to Apple than anyone here. I don't think he's just looking for headlines here. Again, we'll see, but I'll be especially excited if there is a change and it is round.
It's time for Apple to add some true diversity to the line, not just mix and match bands and different case colors.

Grinder? The guy from Bloomberg that just recites common public headlines from forums and Apple news sites?! Seriously?!

Nothing he comments about or says should be worthy of anyone following Bloomberg, he’s like an amateur online phone geek from the early days of Howerdforums, MobileSyrup before they **** down their I’ll fated forums, Esato (SonyEricson/Sony fans). I know because I’ve been there done that years ago. It just appalls me he’s paid for rehashing so much already common knowledge so no I don’t think he’s “connected” with Apple any more than you or I am - Bloomberg is and thus he got interviews and a pass to the iPhone X unveiling.

Don’t confuse Bloomberg’s access with Gruber please.