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Comment by hyperpallium | Hacker News Reader

Apple can make fashionable stuff, which headgear/glasses are, much more so than phones or watches. Few good engineering firms can.

e.g. Consider the publicity shots for VR. As fashion, they are self-parody.

Though IMHO key is heads-up display only - ie no creeping camera. This subtraction destroys AR, and so much related value... it's something a google could never bring itself to do. But Apple has demonstrated time and again that they will omit so-called "crucial" features if they undermine the offering. Another fairly rare strength...

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> Apple can make fashionable stuff

Got to be honest, I think they missed a big opportunity to make the watch fashionable and popular by simply choosing a square face, reminiscent of nerdy calculator watches from decades past, rather than a nice circular face, like most other watches.

Most people won't get an Apple Watch not because it isn't useful, but (I think) because it just doesn't look right, doesn't fit into the "fashion" that it claims to be.

Most people won't get an Apple Watch not because it isn't useful, but (I think) because it just doesn't look right, doesn't fit into the "fashion" that it claims to be.

Apple's gamble seems to be targeting people whom have never owned or even wanted to own a traditional watch and for whom the traditional shape holds no intrinsic emotional value.

Nor for that matter is square an unknown shape even for higher end watches:

http://media.gq.com/photos/56c61128b9dd6cd82e6f7bb5/master/w...

http://media.gq.com/photos/56c61128585fc86b2f2497c6/master/w...

This is totally OT, but your first whom should be who.

>Apple's gamble seems to be targeting people whom have never owned or even wanted to own a traditional watch...

That should be who. People who have never owned... is the noun phrase acting as an object of targeting, and who is the subject of the modifying phrases who have never owned and [who] never even wanted to own. I'm not trying to be a pedant. By using whom, you're signaling that you care about grammar; so I thought I'd give feedback. Feel free to ignore.

Feedback received and accepted.

I haven't bought one because I feel it is redundant. You have a second device, with very similar functionality, that you now need to keep track of and keep updated, etc.

The goal should be simplification.

IMO Apple did an outstanding job with the aesthetic aspects of their Watch. They sold it in different sizes and finishes, with a large variety of different straps. They understood that different people would want different looks, and made the perfect timelessly understated device to accommodate most.

The bigger problem is that Apple Watch never became its own fashion statement. The hype fizzled out quickly and it never reached the same cultural peaks as some of Apple's other products like the iPod or iPhone, products that became their own status symbols in their primes.

And that comes back to function, because the Apple Watch is still a solution in search of a problem.

"Hey dude, something is happening, take out your phone!"

It's not a very compelling value.

When Jobs/Ive was crazy over Dieter Rams designs for Braun, the year was 2001 and music players were designed like if it was a gadget for Batman's belt.

For the years to come all apple designs made look the competition like ridiculous old technology.

Today, Apple designs like the watch and Macbooks follow the same tired idea of curvy, minimalistic Braun-like devices while some competitors are leapfrogging to new design paradigms, maybe trying to pull the same 2001 success of the iPod; Perhaps no one is there yet, but many years have passed and the taste of design is eager for the next thing.

Simplicity in design seems like a fairly timeless design principle. Unfortunately, once you've simplified the design to its near simplest form, its hard to make design updates that feel significantly advancing.

> while some competitors are leapfrogging to new design paradigms

Which competitors/designs do you think are beating out Apple?

Given that every phone and laptop design is a weak derivative of Apple's work I too am curious.

Even many newer smart watches are trending to more Apple-like

At some level form has to follow function, and a square face is simply more functional for a computing screen than a round one. A round faced screen is just as much of a gimmick as a square dial.

> I think they missed a big opportunity to make the watch fashionable and popular

Yeah, I mean they're only the second largest watchmaker in the world, barely popular at all!

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