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In a new interview with Wired, Apple vice president of technology Kevin Lynch and head of human interface design Alan Dye shed some light on the intricate origins of the Apple Watch, from its secretive beginnings to its legacy in a post-Steve Jobs Apple.

Leaving a job at Adobe, Lynch walked onto the Apple Watch project blind and found a team of Apple engineers working away with bare-bones prototypes that included everything from vague sketches to the inclusion of an old-school iPod click wheel.

150401-AppleWatch_Process_Book_HI_updates5-1024x691-800x540.jpg
The team created a new typeface, San Francisco, specifically for the Watch​
Lynch was immediately tasked with spearheading the group in designing a wrist-worn device that would, as Wired points out, aim to be Apple's fourth major game changer following the iPod, iPhone and iPad.
Apple decided to make a watch and only then set out to discover what it might be good for (besides, you know, displaying the time). "There was a sense that technology was going to move onto the body," says Alan Dye, who runs Apple's human interface group. "We felt like the natural place, the place that had historical relevance and significance, was the wrist."
Following Jobs' death in 2011, Jony Ive began envisioning what would eventually become the Apple Watch, and tasked Apple's head of user interfaces, Alan Dye, to custom-fit iOS 7 - which the group was just working on - into a wrist-worn wearable. After months of experimenting, the team settled on the thesis that interactions with the device shouldn't be long, arduous glances, but quick snapshots of information.
Our phones have become invasive. But what if you could engineer a reverse state of being? What if you could make a device that you wouldn't--couldn't--use for hours at a time? What if you could create a device that could filter out all the ******** and instead only serve you truly important information? You could change modern life. And so after three-plus decades of building devices that grab and hold our attention--the longer the better--Apple has decided that the way forward is to fight back.

Apple, in large part, created our problem. And it thinks it can fix it with a square slab of metal and a Milanese loop strap.
The team created dozens of prototypes, including an iPhone rigged to a velco strap attached to a tester's wrist, until landing on the design launching later this month. They optimized the software with features like Short Look and Long Look, getting the Watch to differentiate between saving a notification for later when a user puts his or her wrist back down quickly after buzzing, or displaying it immediately the longer the wrist is held up.

That buzzing, which Apple has dubbed the Taptic Engine, also required significant refinement, with the team researching synesthesia, using one sense to recognize another, to tweak the taptic feedback just right.
When they had the engine dialed in, they started experimenting with a Watch-specific synesthesia, translating specific digital experiences into taps and sounds. What does a tweet feel like? What about an important text? To answer these questions, designers and engineers sampled the sounds of everything from bell clappers and birds to lightsabers and then began to turn sounds into physical sensations.

There were weekly meetings where the software and interface teams would test out, say, the sound and feeling of receiving a phone call. Ive was the decider and was hard to please: Too metallic, he'd say. Not organic enough. Getting the sounds and taps to the point where he was happy with them took more than a year.
Dye points out that while the immense amount of variations on the Watch can be initially intimidating, that vast customization option was always the plan for the Apple Watch. "We didn't want to have three variations, we wanted to have millions of variations," Dye says. "Through hardware and software, we could do that." He also maintains that thanks to the deep variety of options, the $349 Apple Watch Sport and $17,000 Apple Watch Edition are "very different products."

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The team created its fitness medals in the vein of Olympic medals to encourage continuous exercise.​
Though some believe the odds are against Apple, Ben Bajarin, an analyst at Creative Strategies, believes the Cupertino company can, and will, pull it off. "Apple has the most profitable, high-spend customer base on the planet," he says. "That's essentially who watch companies are already trying to sell to: more affluent customers."

But, as Wired points out, the company is equally concerned with the Watch's cultural impact as its monetary one. Lynch describes visiting with his family and not feeling the obtrusive invasion of the outside world attempt to distract him with long glances at his iPhone. Though it's still up in the air whether Apple will achieve all the goals it's setting out to accomplish with the Apple Watch, Wired caps the interview by noting, "In all the time we've been talking, he's never once looked at his phone."

Check out the full Wired interview here.

Article Link: Kevin Lynch and Alan Dye Share Behind-the-Scenes Details on Designing Apple Watch
 
The Apple Watch is going to be huge. Just not yet.

Give it 1-2 years and the wider market will realise, trust me.
 
[url=http://cdn.macrumors.com/im/macrumorsthreadlogodarkd.png]Image[/url]

Leaving a job at Adobe, Lynch walked onto the Apple Watch project blind and found a team of Apple engineers working away with bare-bones prototypes that included everything from vague sketches to the inclusion of an old-school iPod click wheel.

Article Link: Kevin Lynch and Alan Dye Share Behind-the-Scenes Details on Designing Apple Watch

Hardly a scary preposition when you have Apple waving cash at you..
 
Great article!

I think some people, but certainly not everyone, may be underestimating the added simplicity that comes with the watch; Notifications, “glances”, Apple Pay, etc.

Years ago, it didn’t take long before my iPhone almost completely replaced my computer for non-work items. I still need my home computer for a few things, but many tasks are quicker, more efficient and, most importantly, more convenient when done from my iPhone. Before the iPhone, I never would have imagined a phone would be my “go to” device for email, web browsing, and other simple tasks.

I believe Apple Watch will result in a similar “shift” in use for the people who own it. Some things are going to be quicker, more efficient and, most importantly, more convenient on the Apple Watch. Not to mention a host of items many of us haven’t even considered yet (just like we saw with the iPhone).

With new devices, comes the potential for new “distractions”, but I have the sense (and hope I’m not just deluding myself) that Apple Watch will assist in simplifying some of the complexity that has come along with the digital age; a way to manage some of the distractions more efficiently and take control of a few things that have run wild, so to speak.

I am extremely excited about the possibilities!
 
Hardly a scary preposition when you have Apple waving cash at you..

Investment bankers only do their jobs for the money but not engineers. They walk away from millions all the time because it's not fulfilling or just too much pressure. I don't know anything about Lynch but if this Apple Watch fails, he will be exiled from the tech industry. That's not a trivial thing for a man's career no matter how much cash is waved at him.
 
Realise what?

Realise what the most useful functionality of it is, alongside what this guy in the article is talking about.

1) I tried a smartwatch for a week (LG G Watch R) and I have to say, it drastically reduced the amount of time I spent on my phone.

2) If Apple can nail the fitness tracking, that's another huge element.

3) And there is a massive unknown that will be filled by developers.
 
Hmm

Apple decided to make a watch and only then set out to discover what it might be good for

Sounds like the exact opposite of how great, revolutionary products come into being.

What if you could create a device that could filter out all the ******** and instead only serve you truly important information?

More accurately describes slimmed down smart watches like the Pebble than the Watch
 
No one can say whether the Watch will be a success but if I had to put everything I owned on a bet, I'd say it will be as big a success as the iPhone.
 
Realise what?

I never would have thought the iPad would be a hit. Now look at it. The watch might end up being different but every new product everyone says it will be a flop and Apple has nailed it each time.

"ipad is just a big iPod touch", "no one will buy a bigger screen iphone like the 6+", "Sony already has an MP3 player out"

That being said I think once developers come up with clever stuff for the watch we will see it shine. Right now it does seem like a novelty...I'm gonna hold off for a year or two though as I'd like to see more health sensors in the watch.
 
Hmm



Sounds like the exact opposite of how great, revolutionary products come into being.

That's exactly what I thought.

Also

Ive began dreaming about an Apple watch just after CEO Steve Jobs’ death in October 2011.
Steve Jobs would have never allowed this project to continue.

I never would have thought the iPad would be a hit. Now look at it. The watch might end up being different but every new product everyone says it will be a flop and Apple has nailed it each time.

"ipad is just a big iPod touch", "no one will buy a bigger screen iphone like the 6+", "Sony already has an MP3 player out"

That being said I think once developers come up with clever stuff for the watch we will see it shine. Right now it does seem like a novelty...I'm gonna hold off for a year or two though as I'd like to see more health sensors in the watch.
Disagree. 1st the iPad idea was born from Steve Jobs' needing a convenient way to check his email while on the toilet. That's a legit purpose right there. Second the iPad project was what laid the foundation for the iPhone. Third the iPad filled the market for cheap computers that don't totally suck.
 
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One thing I've always admired about Apple under Jobs (and since) is their attention to detail. That does not mean everything is perfect and sometimes those details require compromises but the focus on details is a large part of why Apple is the world's most valuable company.
 
Would love physical versions of those badges

Me too! So shiny. Kinda reminds me of 60s/70s design but mixed with today.

The Apple Watch is going to be huge. Just not yet.

Give it 1-2 years and the wider market will realise, trust me.

Yeah I think it's probably going to start off slow. The iPhone actually started off pretty slow too when you look at the numbers vs. today. I'm just not sure if the price will drop very much. Maybe a little if they unveil newer models, the older ones might be available for less, but maybe only for the sport model. The price of the iPhone has actually gone up since launch since it became subsidized so yeah, hard to tell. The iPad was kinda opposite, starting out kinda fast, but then slowing down quite a bit.

Realise what the most useful functionality of it is, alongside what this guy in the article is talking about.

1) I tried a smartwatch for a week (LG G Watch R) and I have to say, it drastically reduced the amount of time I spent on my phone.

2) If Apple can nail the fitness tracking, that's another huge element.

3) And there is a massive unknown that will be filled by developers.

Yeah, I like your #1 point but wonder if the benefit will be that great to those of us who spend much of the work day in front of the computer? That's the big unknown to me. Is it worth it? Maybe in certain situations to not be rude, but people are already aware when you barely glance at your wrist—especially if they've been chatting your head off for a while—and say "Oh sorry, do you need to go?"

Fitness tracking is something that I'm very interested in as I could use a small amount of help to keep healthy. But that's one of the things making me wonder if I should hold off for a future version. At this point I highly doubt any version coming out in the next several years will have much better battery life or software capabilities. The main upgrades will be sensors! All kinds of sensors. That has me really excited. And yeah, developers will always surprise and delight just like they did on the App Store originally.

Those badges look great, but don't they belong back in iOS 6?

The thing with rewards like this is that they need to more closely resemble real-world objects for people to consider them valuable. I know people realize at a higher level that they're worthless, but on a subconscious level people like getting little prizes—even in the form of eye candy. And they want to show off to their friends that they achieved that level of activity or what have you. Does anyone know if you can easily post these medals to social media? It's not something I would personally do, but I can see that motivating some people.
 
Fantastic article. People could really benefit from absorbing things like this and being less cynical *sometimes*.
 
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