{"id":10845,"date":"2015-04-15T13:07:33","date_gmt":"2015-04-15T20:07:33","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=10845"},"modified":"2020-08-26T10:12:04","modified_gmt":"2020-08-26T17:12:04","slug":"on-design-and-complications","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/needmoredesigns.com\/on-design-and-complications\/","title":{"rendered":"On Design and Complications"},"content":{"rendered":"
With the Apple Watch coming soon, I\u2019ve been learning a bit more about watches and horology.<\/p>\n
Historically, watches simply told the time and it was complicated enough to get them to do that reliably. At some point, features started being added. They were given the name complications<\/em>. For example, when you think of being able to see the day of the month or an alarm time showing on the face of a watch, what you’re imagining\u00a0about is called a complication.<\/p>\n \n In horology, the study of clocks and watches, a complication refers to any feature in a timepiece beyond the simple display of hours and minutes. A timepiece indicating only hours and minutes is otherwise known as a simple movement. Common complications in commercial watches are day\/date displays, alarms, chronographs, and automatic winding mechanisms. (Wikipedia)<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n These are called out as complications for good reason as they\u00a0make building a watch significantly more complex, sometimes adding hundreds of pieces to implement one single complication. Add a number of them and you’ve got an extremely complicated watch.<\/p>\n \n The more complications in a watch, the more difficult it is to design, create, assemble, and repair. A typical date-display chronograph may have up to 250 parts, while a particularly complex watch may have a thousand or more parts. (Wikipedia)<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n As Apple brings a timepiece of their own to market, you can see ways in which they’ve been informed by the knowledge domain of watches. This is referenced throughout their marketing website<\/a>, interviews with Jony Ive<\/a>, and promotional videos<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\nKeep it Simple<\/h2>\n