How Apple Watch Got Its Faces

As you might (or might not know), I have a particular predilection for mechanical watches. I have always been fascinated by watch faces and the design philosophies behind those dials. And that is why I was pretty thrilled to read this deep dive into iconic watch faces that found their way into the Apple Watch. Arun Venkatesan, co-founder of Carrot, and a designer, breaks down the Apple Watch from a design perspective. He looked at various iconic watch faces, and the watch models inspired them.

“With the watch faces, Apple could have taken the easy way out by merely mimicking existing watch archetypes at a surface level,” he writes. “When designing each face, they took into account that history and the constraints and opportunities afforded by modern technology.”

This lengthy article might be the best way to spend half an hour. Please read it.  


Talking Apple Watch on Hodinkee Podcast

I have been fortunate enough to have been invited to the Hodinkee podcast twice in the past. We usually talk about my love of Grand Seiko’s mechanical watches, technology, and photography. They asked me back to the show to talk about the Apple Watch Series 6.  Apple’s Vice President of Human Interface Design Alan Dye and Apple writer John Gruber were other guests. Not to be self-serving, I think this is a great episode, and you should listen to us talk about the Apple Watch.

As I mention in the podcast, with Series 6, the watch feels complete and polished. As I have written before, Series 6 gives us a good view of the future of technology and how it coexists with us, humans. I like the new Series 6. I wear it often. It is now a useful health device. I love using voice to reply to text messages. I listen to


Apple Watch’s Sensory Overload

So, what do I think of Apple’s Time Flies event today? For starters, I appreciate this more egalitarian approach to Apple events, where everyone gets to watch the live stream at the same time regardless of their station in society. I also love the idea of not trekking down to Cupertino early in the morning. Of course, asking everyone to do so wouldn’t be very carbon-neutral of Apple, so this is a win.

Let’s focus on the actual news of the day. While we saw a slew of upgrades — the Apple Watch SE, a new iPad, and a fresh iPad Air — the star of the show was the Apple Watch (Series 6). And that’s not just for the obvious reasons.

Thanks to the smartphone boom, component economics have been turned upside down, and sensors have gotten cheaper. Apple (and others) can afford to cram them into everything they make, and