The Complications of Designing the Apple Watch — and a (Slightly) More Accessible Apple

While hype, speculation and wishful thinking are nothing new when it comes to the Apple Watch, Wired was granted a look behind the the company’s usually secretive curtain. While interviews about the development of a device are part of the usual publicity cycle for most companies, this kind of openness was unheard of during Steve Jobs’ reign as CEO, enforced by his head of PR Katie Cotton.

But now that Jobs has passed on and Cotton’s moved on, this article joins the few about the company that’s been written with its cooperation since then. It gives a tantalizing look at he inner workings of the company. Apple’s still playing things close to the vest. But these rare articles more frequent than never, and it’s a relatively open Apple  compared to a few years ago.

One of the most interesting facts to come up in the article is that former Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch headed what would become the Apple Watch — and is the same person who had headed up the failed effort to get Flash on the iPhone In addition, the cooperation between different departments within the company during the development of a new product is highlighted as well as the demanding schedule Apple makes on its employees. Taking The company wants its people working odd hours because “people tend to be most creative and most fearless when they’re deliriously tired”.

Like the answer to a Zen koan, the Apple Watch team ultimately decided the device must kill the behavior that the iPhone’s conditioned into its users of constantly taking out their phones to check any and all notifications they receive.

It’s a fascinating read for anyone interested in Apple and because those details from on-the-record interviews would have been impossible a few years ago.

Via Wired. Photo by Su℮ ❥/flickr.