If you absolutely love the Apple Watch, then you need to thank Kevin Lynch, an Apple VP of technology and formerly the CTO at Adobe, who took the reins of Apple's latest and fourth product line - a wearable smartwatch - from start to finish.
When Lynch came into Apple, there wasn't even a prototype for what would one day be launched as the Watch. There was no app even in the initial development stage. There was no "hardware" concept, though the idea of making a watch was one of the early discussion topics. However, there were lots of ideas and lots of meetings.
"There was a sense that technology was going to move onto the body," Alan Dye, chief of Apple's human interface group, said. "We felt like the natural place, the place that had historical relevance and significance, was the wrist."
It was 2013. Lynch's team set to work developing lots of possibilities. The goal, as team members relate, was somewhat along the lines of giving users all the benefits of an iPhone and a health device that could work while the user went about their day.
They even went as far as attaching an iPhone to a wrist using a Velcro strap at one point.
In developing what would eventually become the Watch, the project team spent an inordinate amount of time deciding device "sounds" for various interactions then morphing those sounds into physical vibrations. That alone took a year.
The idea being cultivated was creating a communications device that truly communicates with its wearer - to the point of being so smart that it can, with user input, play secretary. Calls, emails and SMS, for example, are distilled in terms of importance.
In an ironic twist, the iPhone would ultimately become the design linchpin for Apple's first-ever wearable but not in a flattering sense at all.
The device, the team realized, would solve the problem the iPhone had actually created: the smartphone user who can't ever seem to put down the smartphone. It would free users from their smartphone.
The need to create something totally different from any other Apple device even drove the design team to create a new typeface and not use Apple legacy Helvetica font. The San Francisco font was born.
By the time the design team finished the Watch, it had crafted 38 various designs, a long way from the iPhone velcroed on a wrist. In terms of functionality, however, it was still very much like an iPhone on a wrist but with some very cool tech, such as the Taptic Engine and the "Short Look" gesture control.
Now, it's just a matter of watching if Apple's legion of loyal fans take to the Watch like they've taken to the iPod, iPad and, obviously, iPhone.
