RANDOM APPLE MEMORY Apple Watch
From the Mac to the iPod, Apple was always the tech brand with a fashion logo. But the Watch wore it best, recalls Adam Banks
ARRIVING FOUR YEARS after the iPad, the Watch was Apple’s first new product line under Tim Cook as CEO. Steve Jobs’ company had begun, as every Apple press release reminded us, by “igniting the personal computer revolution.” Now it announced its “most personal device ever.” Having poached Angela Ahrendts, CEO of British fashion house Burberry, to run Apple’s retail operations, Cook added more luxury market veterans to shape the Watch’s appeal and former Nike employees to hone its fitness credentials. Meanwhile Jony Ive, promoted to oversee both hardware and software, formed his own partnership with longtime friend and collaborator Marc Newson. Among other projects from chairs to cars, the celebrated Australian industrial designer had founded Ikepod, known for futuristic watches like the Solaris, with its minimalist rounded–rectangle case and precision–engineered Milanese mesh strap. Days before the Watch was unveiled, Apple quietly confirmed that Newson had been hired on to Ive’s team.