Marc Newson, famous designer and close friend of Apple design guru Jony Ive, just gave his first solo interview since joining Apple last year. In the interview with the London Evening Standard, Newson talks Apple Watch, thought to be one of the first products he had involvement with since joining the company, as well as the future of the company from fashion to cars.
When asked about Apple Watch, and specifically the criticism from the fashion industry, Newson responded:
‘There are a lot of Louis Vuitton bags out there. I think at one point every 1.5 Japanese woman had a Louis Vuitton bag. But it still qualifies as a luxury object. It’s about the quality and integrity of the product… ‘I’ve got some classic mechanical timepieces. I don’t see how they and the Apple Watch cannibalise one another or compete.’
And on the technology becoming outdated, unlike traditional fashion items:
The way I see it, it’s evolution, progress,’ Newson recovers. ‘And we are doing wonderful things. In one of the versions of the watch, the box it comes in acts as a charging device that you can use for other models. So it becomes a useful object and not something that will just sit in the top drawer of your cupboard for the rest of eternity.’
And lastly, Newson hinted at the future by highlighting the benefits of both continued innovation for wearables and fashion items, as well as the potential in the auto industry following reports of Apple’s ambitions to build a vehicle.
‘We will start to see more technology embedded in garments — magic woven in. There are some incredible things that are going to happen’…. Why not accelerate ahead of the pack with an iCar? Newson does little to damp down the speculation: ‘There is certainly vast opportunity in that area to be more intelligent.’
Newson noted that his role at Apple is taking up around 60 percent of his time. So it’s not a full-time gig, but he adds that he hopes to be with the company “indefinitely”. It’s unclear if Newson’s role will change at all following Jony Ive’s new promotion that will see the exec hand over control of his current departments to others as he switches focus and works on retail and other tasks.
While it’s Newson’s first solo interview since joining Apple, he’s appeared in the media previously with Jony Ive to discuss Apple Watch and more.
More with Newson in the full piece here.
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“In one of the versions of the watch, the box it comes in acts as a charging device that you can use for other models.” — too bad they didn’t have *all* the watches come with this… :| I get that they want to differentiate the edition models but…they’re already using precious metals and have a much higher price.
“In one of the versions of the watch, the box it comes in acts as a charging device” Yes, for $10,000+ it BETTER come with a charging box! Funny how it’s mentioned as “one” of the versions. Like they are all SO similar, he can’t remember which one. Yeah right….
Sounds like he responded to some very specific criticism, but not the more common criticisms of the watch.
The watch is very un-apple in ease of use.
First Apple product I haven’t bought. I will eventually, but not this version. The OS is worse than something from Microsoft or Google. I’m possibly leaning towards the new pebble watch for now.
Did you actually use it? My impressions before and after using it were completely different. I have no problem using it at all. It’s very simple, in my opinion.
Theres something interesting about the apple watch OS that is actually pretty cool but its a bit of a learning curve. The OS will hopefully see some much needed improvement as fast as apple can spit it out. But I think its worth trying it out. I was so frustrated with my watch for the first three days with all the room for improvements that a company like apple probably already knows it can improve in but rushed it out anyway, but at least its software. It definitely feels a lot different from trying it out at the apple store than trying it out in your day to day life.
Because of the learning curve and how “different” it is from ios, I compare it to the iphone. It looked like it was so easy to use when it was demoed but it was a lot more complex in reality..but once you got the hang of it, it changed the way you looked at phones.
The watch is extremely easy to use. Have you even tried using it yet? You can’t expect an entirely new paradigm to sit well with everyone right off the bat. And, as with all new things, there is a learning curve. But I would hardly use the word “steep” to define the learning curve of the Apple Watch. It just sounds like you hate change.
Don’t worry, that guy doesn’t know numerous things you can do on an iPhone I assure you. He just acts like he should know it as well as he knows an iPhone which he’s used for years.
Let’s pretend you hand an iPhone to someone who never touched one. Are they going to know you can swipe down on the home screen to pull up spotlight search? Are they going to know you swipe the very left of the screen to go back a page? The top and bottom of the screen down to open notification center and control center? I think not. Yet these are normal functions.
I think he should be thrilled that there’s anybody out there interested enough to criticize it.
Can’t make a watch what makes him think they can make a car?
“I think at one point every 1.5 Japanese woman had a Louis Vuitton bag.”
Haha. So almost every Japanese women had a Louis Vuitton? Generalizing a bit? Had he said, “black women,” would that have sounded racist?