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Written by Anuj Bhatia
The | New Delhi |
Updated: April 24, 2020 8:41:34 am
Once seen as a fashion accessory, Apple Watch is now slowly moving forward to become a medical and health device. (Image credit: Bloomberg)
Five years ago, exactly on April 24, 2015, Apple Watch went on sale. The Apple Watch was a big test for Tim Cook, who took over as CEO after Steve Jobs introduced Apple’s latest high-profile product, the iPad.
In the past five years, the Apple Watch has been transformed from a niche product for first-time users to a conventional device. Once seen as a fashion accessory, Apple Watch is now slowly moving forward to become a medical and health device. It is also the most popular watch in the world.
On Apple Watch’s fifth anniversary, here are some little-known facts about the watch.
Steve Jobs was not involved with Apple Watch
It is a known fact that Apple Watch was Jony Ive’s passion project from the start. However, not many know that Steve Jobs was not involved in the project, as the first conversations about Apple Watch started a few months after Jobs’ death.
“The first discussion took place in early 2012, a few months after Steve’s death. It made us take time, pause to think about where we wanted to go, what path we were in as a company and what motivated us,” said Jony Ive. in an interview with Hodinkee founder Benjamin Clymer.
“At that point in the journey, we all routinely carried incredibly powerful products, in terms of their technical capabilities, in our pockets. And I think, I think, that an obvious continuation of this path that we’ve been on for so many years was making technology more personal and more accessible, “he added.
Jony Ive always wanted the Apple Watch to have a rectangular shape. (Image credit: Nandagopal Rajan)
Apple Watch was designed to be rectangular
Ask any watch enthusiast or collector and they will tell you that round cases make sense for a watch. But unlike others, Apple went the other way and created the Apple Watch to be rectangular. In a piece published by The New Yorker in 2015, Apple’s star designer alleviated that a circular face doesn’t make sense for what you’ll do on the watch. “When lists are a big part of the function, a circle doesn’t make any sense,” Ive said. To date, Apple watches have a rectangular touchscreen with rounded corners and a rotating crown button to scroll.
Apple Watch was from Jony Ive, who now left Apple, original idea.
Apple consulted watch experts
Apple is a notoriously secretive company, and it’s hard to imagine that the company would receive outside help in the design process for its products. But in the case of the Apple Watch, Jony Ive recruited his best friend and famous designer, Marc Newson. Interestingly, Ive and his team also contacted experts to help design the Apple Watch, including horologists, curators of the Royal Observatory, and an astrophysicist. “We knew that there was much to appreciate in this space that, to put us on the ground, we had a number of people who helped us. Just to begin to understand the historical space, having tremendous respect and deference for watchmaking, “said Ive. “This was very unusual for us to speak to anyone outside of our team early in the product development stage. But there are usually no parallel products to learn from. “
Jony Ive doesn’t think Apple Watch is a watch
Is Apple Watch a watch or a small computer? Well, Jony Ive does not believe that the Apple Watch is a watch. “No, I think this is a very powerful computer, with a very sophisticated range of sensors, that is tied to my wrist,” he told the Financial Times in 2018.
The Apple Watch Series 4 was the first smartwatch to measure an ECG, short for EKG. (Image credit: Nandagopal Rajan)
Apple sold more watches in 2019 than the entire Swiss watch industry
Apple Watch outperformed the entire Swiss watch industry in 2019, according to research firm Strategy Analytics. According to British consulting firm Strategy Analytics, Apple shipped 30.7 million watches last year, compared to 21.1 million sold by the Swiss watch industry. While there is no doubt that Swiss watches are luxurious and that many people buy them, the way Apple Watch made a place for itself in the world of watches is a case study in itself.
The gold luxury watch was more of an experiment.
Apple made a gold Apple Watch sold for $ 17,000
Along with the first-generation Apple Watch that started at $ 349, Apple also introduced a watch priced at $ 17,000. The high-end “Edition” was priced between $ 10,000 and $ 17,000 and was made from custom 18-carat rose or yellow gold alloys. The “Edition” watch was aimed at the Chinese market.
Who said you can’t play on Apple Watch?
You can play games on Apple Watch
The Apple Watch may not seem like the friendliest gaming platform, but there are plenty of games available for it. While you won’t find graphics-intensive games on the Apple Watch, there are some great small-size games that are designed to take advantage of the Apple Watch’s screen size.
The highly collectible original Apple Watch can cost you Rs 200,000. (Image credit: eBay USA)
Apple made a watch long before the Apple Watch
Do you know that Apple made a watch in 1995? Well, it was not a smart watch, but a normal analog watch. In 2015, Apple created a watch for users looking to upgrade to the Macintosh 7.5 system. It was a great-looking watch with scratch-resistant glass, a striking blue bezel, Japanese quartz, an embossed Mac OS strap, and a multi-colored Apple logo. The watch was a promotional item, so it never went on sale. These days, the watch has seen a resurgence in popularity among staunch collectors and Apple fans. You can still buy the original 1995 Apple Watch on eBay, but be prepared to split between Rs 50,000 and Rs 200,000.
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