Apple doesn’t understand watch dial design
The Series 4 Apple Watch is largely regarded as a huge improvement over the previous iterations and the design has been praised for feeling more like a watch than a computer.
A lot of time has obviously been spent on the physical form to create a familiar form that sits well on the wrist and this likely because many of the seniors within Apple are watch guys, traditional mechanical watch guys.
What I don’t get, however, is the lack of cohesive thinking when it comes to the watch faces on offer and the way they are implemented.
Marco Arment wrote about the difficulty in reading the time quickly here (https://marco.org/2018/10/09/infograph-legibility) in the Infograph faces and he is right, but there is a bigger problem that could be viewed in a few different ways.
Look at a traditional watch, vintage or modern, mechanical or quartz, they all have a consistency of design on the dial where each area works together to create look that is pleasing to the eye and easy to read.
When I say all, that is of course not always the case because brands like Diesel, Invicta and some others make some god awful watches that only those with zero taste would wear. However, the majority look at design for good reason and not just to make something that looks nice. Each part is designed to be practical and aesthetically pleasing, but Apple doesn’t seem to do the same.
The Series 4 is much improved and is a decent smartwatch, but the Infograph watch face is awful in so many ways. I can view so much information with one look, such as sleep stats and steps alongside the temperature and activity progress, but I cannot change the colours or make it look consistent in any way. Complication colours are static and they almost never work together visually. Multiple colours on a face where information is key is a terrible design choice and it all comes together to stop you telling the time quickly.
Apple knows what makes a good traditional watch and it knows what makes a good smartwatch, but it has chosen to limit options for users to customise the dials to their preference. Third party watch faces would be a good start, but simply allowing us to change the colours of each complication would help a lot. And it would take no time at all to add that functionality.
It is bizarre how Apple has restricted watchOS to the point it is at now and it makes no sense at all.
