<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"Oh, Motorola, you crafty little minx. How did you know that a simple circle could turn a smartwatch from a clunky embarrassment into a potential object of desire? I have no other way of explaining my visceral reaction to seeing the Moto 360 for the first time. Based on photos and videos, it looks as a watch should.\n\nThe Moto 360 is almost everything a watch lover could possibly want. Watch nerds like me also love what\u2019s inside a garden-variety mechanical watch: When done right, it\u2019s a perfect interplay of gears, jewels, hands, metal and glass. Open a Swiss-made watch or pocket watch, and you\u2019ll see that a millimeter of space isn't spared. They\u2019re truly things of beauty, and for the best of them, that design excellence usually carries through to their bodies, as well. \nSee also: The Complete Guide to the Pebble Smartwatch\nWhen digital watches first started to appear in the early 1970s, they were bulky, awkward objects with tiny rectangular screens. Their shapes could best be described as modified hexagons with flat tops and bottoms, and bulgy sides.\nThe shape of watches continued to evolve over the next 20 years. It seemed the smarter watches got, the squarer -\u2013 and sometimes bigger \u2014 they became (e.g. calculator watches).\nThere is nothing intrinsically wrong with a square watch; there's a long tradition of lovely mechanical rectangles. In fact, I own a lovely self-winding one. On the other hand, the apex of modern-day watch style is the circle. Walk into any New York City, Fifth Avenue watch emporium, and you will see what I mean. Better yet, watch Daniel Craig play James Bond in Skyfall, and you\u2019ll notice he\u2019s wearing an exquisite, round-faced Omega Seamaster. \nThe shape and face of a watch evoke style and elegance. If you want to sell smartwatches to this audience, your design can be no less stylish.\n\nMotorola\u2019s decision to go round is obviously smart, but it\u2019s also bold. With most small, wearable components \u2014 including the screen \u2014 designed to fit in square bodies, the company was forced to, as its designers and engineers explain in the Moto 360's reveal video, build a brand new set of components. We watch nerds love custom-made stuff.\nThe company also worked closely with its soon-to-be-ex parent, Google, to develop an Android wearable-device interface called Android Wear that would fit perfectly on the round screen. The result: a touch interface that looks perfectly at home on the round screen.\nYes, in a perfectly round design, you lose some screen real estate, but you also gain the ability to transform the screen into a near-perfect duplicate of a traditional timepiece. Obviously, it\u2019s just a screen, but at a glance, the Moto 360 is going to look like an elegant, traditional watch. And if I get bored with that traditional face, I can change it.\nStill, the Moto 360 is a smartwatch, and both Google and Motorola have spoken at length about how it must be glanceable, and wherever possible, driven by voice.\n\nIn the videos, I did notice that even when wearers are speaking to their Moto 360s, they\u2019re not holding the watch close to their mouths, or to their ears to listen to its response.\nWhatever Google and Motorola can do to make the Moto 360 and other Android-based smartwatches as watch-like as possible is a plus. The moment I raise my Moto 360 to my mouth, everyone \u2014 especially my watch-nerd friends \u2014 will know it\u2019s not a \"real watch.\"\nI'd like people to react like they do when they see me wearing one of my mechanical watches: They usually notice the design, offer compliments, and then I take it off so they can get a closer look at the watch's body (and if it\u2019s a skeleton watch, with a clear front and back, the workings inside). Simply put, I want people to see the Moto 360 on my wrist, tell me it looks sharp and then surprise them with the fact that it\u2019s a smartwatch with all these other features.\nIn contrast, smartwatches from Samsung (Galaxy Gear and Gear 2) and even Pebble (1 and Steel) are still playing catch-up on the wearable-design front. To be fair, the latest updates from each manufacturer offer significant aesthetic improvements, but both are still a bit too bulky or squarish for my tastes.\nOf course, looks aren't everything, but when it comes to watches, they\u2019re at least 75% of the equation. As Matthew McConaughey, playing Rust Cohle in True Detective, said, \u201CTime is a flat circle.\u201D \nIt\u2019s nice to know Motorola got the message.\nHave something to add to this story? Share it in the comments."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2014/03/18/the-moto360-circle-design/>