Jonathan Ive on Designing the Apple Watch

The Financial Times has posted a new profile on Apple SVP Jonathan Ive and his design of the Apple Watch.

Ive notes that his design team is not “distracted by or overly concerned with the ramifications of what we do, because we’re so consumed by design and trying to solve problems. I think being fanatical and myopic are fundamental to our approach.”


Rather than being concerned about how many Apple Watches the company will sell, Ive says he is "much more concerned about how we can make them as good as possible than how many we’ll sell. We’re brutally self-critical and go through countless iterations of each product."

Ive also revealed that the company has spent thousands of hours evaluating and testing its upcoming smartwatch and is still working to improve it further.

"Even now, when the design of the Apple Watch is incredibly mature and has gone through thousands and thousands of hours of evaluation and testing, we’re still working and improving. You are trying to keep everything fluid for as long as possible because everything is so interconnected. The best products are those where you have optimised each attribute while being very conscious of other parts of the product’s performance."

He also offered some thoughts on attaching technology to our wrists.


"One of the things that struck me," says Ive, "was how often I’d look at my watch and have to look again quite soon afterwards, because I hadn’t actually comprehended what the time was. If I had looked at something on my phone, because of the investment involved in taking it out of my pocket or my bag, I would certainly pay attention. I quite like this sense of almost being careless and just glancing. I think for certain things the wrist is the perfect place for this technology."

Hit the link for the full interview...

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