Apple’s iWatch Will Be The Next Trending Gadget Of 2014

Samsung has already debuted their smartwatch which has been criticized heavily over its design and battery. Although Apple has yet not confirmed whether it is working on an iWatch or not, the internet is buzzing with conceptual designs and rumors about what will and what will not be included in Apple’s latest gadget. We have seen a number of conceptual designs up till now but none of them rank anywhere near the design submitted by Todd Hamilton who decided, while keeping iOS7 in mind, that Apple would definitely go for a sleek and somewhat curved design.

The design is inspired by the fitness bands which are out in the market such as Nike Fuelband. We have been hearing speculations about Apple’s iWatch since the end of 2012 which included news that Apple is working in collaboration with Intel to come up with a watch. Other news and rumors stated that it will come with a 1.5” display, make use of Bluetooth to connect to devices and will also feature Siri that will enable the users to dictate their smart watch regarding what needs to be done instead of navigating on the watch’s display. July, 2013 had Financial Times saying that Apple is having some difficulties with the design and is looking for ‘outside’ assistance. Later in September, some more bad news came in, again unofficial, that Apple’s iWatch is facing some setbacks due to the difficulty in creating particular watch components.

Hamilton’s design is a simple and elegant one. The lock-screen for the iWatch will come with a simple yet striking white and black interface. Hamilton says that this will show you the time and date along with a button to have Siri activated. The reason behind this choice, as per Hamilton is that he wanted to mimic as much of previous Apple’s products as possible. Therefore, the users will be able to swipe up if they wish to unlock, swipe down to view the notifications and tap it twice to have Siri at their service. The unlocked screen shall host four app icons stacked in an orderly fashion while on the Right Hand Side, a page controller will be provided.

The watch will come with a physical home button and volume controls. The navigation will be the same as that of an iPhone. Using the home button will bring the users to the lock screen again. Hamilton has even explained how the menus would work in his conceptual design. He says; ‘The iPhone and iPad has tabs across the bottom of the screen.  A normal tab view across the bottom wasn’t going to work so I came up with a simple drop down control in the title bar. Tapping this would display a popover menu showing the other available pages. I also purposely left out several of the controls like Edit and Add Contact. On a device this small I think it makes more sense to manage apps, contacts, and media from a synced iPhone or Mac”

Hamilton states on his own blog; ‘A few months ago Thomas Bogner posted an iWatch mockup that looked like a marriage between a Nike Fuelband and an iPhone. It was an impressive concept that got a lot of people excited including myself. However, it had a major flaw: the orientation of the interface made it impossible to use. I had some free time over the holidays so I decided to take a stab at the problem and create a more user friendly concept.  I wanted to retain a slim form factor like the Fuelband and incorporate familiar UI components from iOS 7. It needed to feel natural on the wrist and look like something Apple would actually produce.’

Well it would seem that Hamilton has come up with a fascinating conceptual design. However, the next question will be if Apple is actually designing an iWatch and how close will Hamilton’s conceptual design to the original watch will be.