A nice set of images from Abdel Ibahim—it’s hard to argue with the logic.
Why the Apple Watch shouldn’t be round
A nice set of images from Abdel Ibahim—it’s hard to argue with the logic.
Round is a horrible design for an e-watch.
More proof that a picture is worth a thousand words.
Funny, I’ve actually been thinking its UI was designed with a round future in mind. This guy was very selective about trying to make a circle look bad. for one, he chose the smaller diameter and matched the circle to that. Furthermore, he’s forgetting that a circle can be wider/taller than a rectangle but feel more compact because it doesn’t have the corners taking up space in 4 directions.
I’m not saying circles are necesarrily right for the Apple Watch, but when you really look at the UI you might agree with me … there’s a lot of black space around the elements so that the borders of the screen disappear. Much different than the rectangualar focused iPhone UI.
Just look at the apps on the homescreen! (I wonder why Ibahim left that screenshot out…)
he chose the smaller diameter and matched the circle to that
It’s damned near Too Big already, especially the larger version – and to be a decent product, you have to have the same basic form factor, not “a big round one and some smaller rectangular ones for people who aren’t giants”…
“Feeling” compact on a screen is fine; it won’t on a wrist.
(And for notifications and text?
Round is absolutely completely the anti-shape. No, no, no.)
Screens are so last decade. The future is holographic images beamed into the space above your wrist and a direct-brain interface so you just think at it what you want it to do. And, of course, that’s only for the showoffs. The truly cool future kids will just have everything directly wired into their brain and no one will know whether they are paying attention or actually playing the latest mindgame or checking their mindtweets.
Again, I’m not saying circles are necesarrily right for the Apple Watch. As for your claim: “to be a decent product, you have to have the same basic form factor”, all I can say is: we’ll see. You make some good points, but I’m standing by mine as well.
Give it 3-6 years. If there’s no circle-screened Apple Watch I’ll buy you a beer.
Subcutaneous displays that pigment the owner’s skin.
If only Apple could make a UI to fit a round device. #pictureslie 😉
it’s been seven years of iPhones — where’s the round one? why not? because the form follows the function. real watches are round because they have arms that swing in a circular path. form following function. digital watch has no arms. apple watch form follows function.
Take screenshots of an UI designed for a rect screen, add a circle on it. Doesn’t fit? Wow, yes, you now have a blog post that people can link to! This is stupid. But the misleading part is the link title on the loop, makes us this that there’s arguments and reflexion on the linked post… nothing.
Time wasted, 30 s. plus 2 minutes to write my comment.
UI for square does not fit into a circle. Now that he has figured out that square pegs don’t fit in round holes, Abdel Ibahim is now ready to graduate from preschool. This does not, however, say anything about what a UI designed for a round interface would do.
Hm… this digital watch actually does have arms swinging in a circular direction. It’s clear that Apple Watch is inspired by watches that come before it. And yes, as you point out, many of them are circular.
For you I gotta say you’ll owe me a beer if there is a circular one someday. But we’ll see!!
Until we all start presenting text in a spiral or using polar coordinates for anything other than air-traffic control, round displays are not much of a space-effective solution for conveying useful information.
It’s a watch. This is where Apple missed, IMHO.
You don’t need to browse pics, read a lot of text, etc. Nix all that extra junk and stick to the basics, which they normally get right but went opposite this time, and you easily can work on a round display.
Why they didn’t though is probably more to the tune of development. Xcode, while it has its promising features, was not built for scalable interfaces until 6 (this one). I think they need more time getting the tooling right to not only allow dev on rectangles but also round.
(far out guess from a developer; meaning my mind is on the dev perspective first, blinds me sometimes)
It’s not a watch. It’s an information-gathering and -conveying gadget with a screen that happens to tell time and fit on a wrist. And I doubt it’ll remain the only form-factor of this new Apple device category for long.
Apple Watch. <– this
Sure, iPhone is used for more than phone but you don’t see the iPod nearly as much anymore.
It undoubtedly is a watch, first and foremost.
I agree you may see another form factor.
Every watch I have ever owned has been either a square or a rectangle. Yet all of a sudden the Apple Watch needs to be a circle?
I guess if that’s all you’ve got to criticise then Apple’s onto a good thing.
The funny thing is the Android Wear watches were bashed for being squares (“Apple would never do this”) but Apple’s square is justified (see your own comment). 🙂
^ This is why it is criticized.