The Apple Watch: Works great, but does it look good?

LONDON — More than any product Apple has previously launched, the Apple Watch, if it is to seduce you, will first woo you with its looks rather than its brains. In addition to telling the time wherever you are, it will do pretty much everything the iPhone does — and then some. But as one Apple insider said, if this watch did nothing other than tell the time, it would still be a lovely object.

So how does actually it look and feel? When it was finally unveiled, it seemed a tad bulky; but they need to stash all that technology somewhere. Once on, it sits surprisingly elegantly on your wrist. And there’s that satisfying chink of the buckle, which snaps together magnetically.

Apple may have outdone themselves on the acoustic front. A professor of music from Amsterdam was commissioned to synthesise analogue watch chimes into digital sounds — it transpires that Jonathan Ive, Apple’s senior vice president of design, loathes the intrusive beeps and vibrations that characterise all smartphones. Nor is the noise that buckle makes accidental.

There are two size faces (38mm and 42mm) and three different styles (and price points): The Apple Watch Sport, the Apple Watch and the luxury Watch Edition. All three have been developed to Apple’s specifications: The gold on the Watch Edition, for example, is harder-wearing than normal 18 carat gold, and the steel is more scratch resistant. The notorious shatter-prone glass on the iPad and iPhone will be superseded by sapphire glass, apparently the toughest clear material currently available (other than diamond) and is a standard feature on all but the Sports model.

Where Apple’s watch leaves others standing is in the almost infinite ways it can be customised. Straps are interchangeable, either made of Viton (a synthetic rubber), quilted and plain leather, metal mesh or links and designed to be easily changed and altered to fit at home. There are 11 different faces with the basic package, ranging from traditional analogue dials with Roman, Arabic or no numerals, to the Timelapse, Solar and Astronomy faces. The Astronomy face features interactive, real-time 3D models of the earth, sun, moon, butterflies and planets as well as moving film of Big Ben, Yosemite National Park and other landmarks.

One radical development has been the jettisoning of its pioneering pinch-to-display technique. After much soul searching, Ive’s design team opted for the traditional looking side-winder, or crown, as they’re known in horology-speak. It’s a neatly respectful touch. As Ive pointed out: “With all the brilliant minds that worked on watches over the centuries, why wouldn’t you want to keep some of that knowledge and expertise?”

Ive himself is a keen collector of analogue watches: His favourite is an old Patek Philippe. And as he and his team discovered, time is both a romantic notion and an emblem of power. It’s not lost on Apple, nor on the traditional watch industry, which is both twitchy and tetchy about this invader. Are they right to be worried? The Apple Watch certainly multitasks and looks terrific, although most of us will deploy a fraction of its potential. However, at least two generations have grown up, partly thanks to smartphones, not wearing watches. Will they be wowed? And can aficionados be convinced that the gold Edition version is an heirloom as much as a Rolex?

Time will only tell how successful the watch will be, but this much is clear: The company is entering the style arena. THE DAILY TELEGRAPH