Exclusive Apple Watch interview | iPhone 13 bigger battery? Oh, yes please | Compared: HomePod mini & Amazon Echo

Today, we’ll be focusing on one of the most exciting rumors about this Fall’s iPhone release: better battery life. There’s also the first part of an extensive, exclusive interview with Apple’s Alan Dye, on the design of Apple Watch from the beginning right up to now. Part two follows next week (he said a LOT of great stuff). 

With the HomePod now cancelled, making the HomePod mini Apple’s only smart speaker, you might like to know which is better, HomePod mini or Amazon Echo. That’s this week’s One More Thing.

Plus links to cool stuff from Forbes and beyond and a new rumor about AirPods 3 (which you might not want to hear). Hope you’ll enjoy it all, and please let me know what you think at AppleUnboxed@forbes.com. 

AppleUnboxed is not affiliated with Apple Inc.

With the iPhone 12, things were about the same as the iPhone 11 - still strong but no leap forward, perhaps because the extra burden of seeking a 5G connection took its toll. One model, the iPhone 12 mini, didn’t have as much battery life, as critics were quick to point out.

So, the latest rumor that the next iPhones, when they’re released this Fall, will have bigger batteries has been met with delight. 

There are more details on the space-saving, including a system for integrating the slot for the SIM card with the motherboard, thinning down the components that make up the front optical modules such as the True Depth camera array and so on. 

This news is especially welcome because the iPhone 12 batteries were actually smaller than on the iPhone 11, leading some analysts to predict a decline in battery life. That didn’t happen thanks to power usage efficiencies, which is an accomplishment in itself, but the prospect of a bigger battery is great news. Depending on how many more features or extras there are, there may not be a huge uptick in battery life, but every little helps.

The analyst notes that the next-generation iPhones will likely be slightly heavier as a result. There’s a story, perhaps apocryphal, that a Sony CEO, on seeing a prototype of the first Walkman and being told by his engineers that it was a miracle of miniaturisation, asked for a bucket of water. He dropped the Walkman into the bucket and when he saw air bubbles floating out, quietly said, “There are gaps. You can make it smaller”. 

It sort of feels like we’re getting to that point with the iPhone, where every cubic millimeter of air will be taken up with something else - probably battery. 

There are probably six months before the next iPhones, so plenty of time for more details to drop. Incidentally, as I’ve said before, it seems like this year’s iPhone crop will look near-identical to the current models, in which case I’d expect them to be called iPhone 12s, not iPhone 13.

David Phelan The first Apple Watch came in spring 2015, so, thinking back over those more than five years, what were the guiding principles when it came to designing the interface for the Watch in the first place?

Alan Dye Like we do with any new project, early on we spent a great deal of time thinking about not only the first version, but of course, how we create a design system for Apple Watch that can live long into the future. A lot of what we were thinking about at the time were core concepts, for instance, around legibility. 

We’d certainly never worked with a display size that small: how do we impart a great deal of data on such a small display at a glance? 

We spent time looking back at and learning about the history of time-keeping, to better understand how time has been kept through the ages. 

A lot of that guided the work that we did on the Watch faces and I think you see that certainly in the original collection of faces, but all the way through to the newest ones we've done now. A lot of those early principles around things like legibility at a small scale forced us to even design a new typeface that became eventually the one we use for all Apple products and all Apple marketing. 

All of those core original concepts. I think you still inherently see in the work that we do today. Another good example you might look at is even just the design of the hands themselves, which we've kept very consistent over the past five years.

DP Is legibility one of the things that guided you towards basically a rectangular shape rather than a round shape for the Watch?

AD Yes, that's right, we knew that one of the key features of Apple Watch was going to be to impart more data or even to share notifications with the user so that they could get at-a-glance, hopefully meaningful and important information without having to use their phone. Knowing that people were going to be to be reading and sharing information on their wrist, we knew that the solution was to rely on the rounded rectangular form.

AD Well, of course like anything else, how we translate the amazing new capabilities into interface is always a design problem for us, right? But luckily, we have this amazing process at Apple whereby we're constantly collaborating across hardware, software engineering and of course, within the design studio, so it's an ongoing conversation and there's a constant give and take.

We're asking for certain capabilities from a design perspective, we're learning about new capabilities that come from an engineering perspective and ultimately that leads to the work that we end up doing.

But without a doubt there has been this massive increase in terms of capability of the Watch and our job is always to go back and make sure that we're creating an interface for the user that's very accessible and easy to use. Probably most importantly it must impart the information in the cleanest, simplest, clearest possible way. 

DP One of the things that was evident though, even when the Watch first came out was that health and wellness and fitness were going to be a priority. With the latest Apple Watch Series 6 you can not only take an ECG on your wrist, you can also check your blood oxygen levels. I wonder if you would talk a little about the animations, which are very striking, that go along with both of those.

I know the ECG relates to the particular measurement being taken at that time so it's very personal and the blood oxygen level measure, which I find quite hypnotic, seems to calm me down. Tell me how you came to those designs.

AD Well, we're so proud of the work that we do around health and wellness, fitness and activity on the watch. One of the things that gets us out of bed and excited for the work that we do is really to think through things like, how do we take these really important and meaningful technologies and make them accessible?

One of the things that we can do as a design team is to think about things like programmatic animations like we've made for ECG and SPO2 measurement. I love the fact that you use the word hypnotic. I don't know if that was necessarily a goal but we certainly wanted the animations not only to describe the experience in a way that feels a bit calming, because we do want you to be in a calm, steady, still state, but also to describe what's happening and to help a user better understand and feel more connected to the technology.

Of course, there's plenty of ways we could have done that in a much more analog, cold way but I think we wanted to bring a bit of warmth and humanity to those experiences. Every time you take a blood oxygen level reading, it's literally a programmatically unique animation that you're seeing. 

AD We had a lot of fun with this one and again, it's such a great example of where I think Apple does its best work. The teams on the AI and Machine Learning side have been working really hard to better understand through a number of different inputs, whether we could discern whether someone is washing their hands.

We used the microphone and the motion of your hands through the accelerometer, and we had some great success there.

Our job then was to think about how we create through haptics which you feel on your wrist, through animations, through what you see on the screen, maybe even through sound if you have the sound on on your Watch, how can we create an experience that is fun and enjoyable and encourages people to wash their hands for 20 seconds.

You know, we're quite obsessed with typography and I mentioned earlier we designed a font called San Francisco that eventually become the basis for all the type that we used widely.

In this case we had a little bit of fun with it and we made the typeface out of these kind of soapy bubbles and even the countdown sort of bubbles away as you wash your hands, but it's built on that same kind of structure of a lot of the other graphical forms we use throughout the system.

I think it's some of the work that we're most proud of this time around but also such a good example of how we can really be expressive with this original language that we designed five or six years ago.

For part two of Alan Dye on Apple Watch design, tune in next week, same time, same channel.

iPhone 12 display issues: If your iPhone 12 display has greenish tint, it may be fixed in iOS 14.5. Or it may not. Janhoi McGregor investigates, here at Forbes.

Apple’s big software upgrade: The next iPhone software update, we think, will be iOS 14.5. And it looks like being one of the biggest Apple has ever done at this stage in the iOS cycle. Full details here on Forbes.

What the next OnePlus phone will look like: The next phone from OnePlus is going to feature a camera from Hasselblad, which is exciting. Want to see what the phone is rumored to look like? Britta O’Boyle at Pocket-lint has the details.

AirPods Max battery drain fixed: A new firmware update for AirPods Max has fixed the cliff-edge battery drain some users came across, it seems. Testing by Guilherme Rambo at 9to5Mac confirms this - and that’s my experience, too, by the way.

Nintendo Switch Pro incoming?: Also at Pocket-lint, Rik Henderson weighs up the chances of a pro version of Nintendo’s brilliant games console arriving this year. 

AirPods 3 could still be months away, after all

So, stop holding your breath. Although there have been plenty of rumors that Apple’s next true-wireless earbuds could be just days away from launch, with leaked images adding to the excitement, a new voice has suggested that Fall, not Spring, is when we’ll see them. 

Ming-Chi Kuo, again, has now chimed in to the conversation with an expectation that AirPods 3 are far from ready and will go into production in the third quarter this year. Previously, Kuo had hinted at the first half of the year, but he says that’s not happening. 

Kuo also pointed out that it’s not clear whether the arrival of AirPods 3 will mean the demise of the previous version—which is the conventional Apple way for many but not all products—or whether Apple will continue to sell them alongside, perhaps as a more affordable option, and risk cannibalizing sales of the new version. 

I’m not sure about this. Kuo has impeccable credentials but there is also a wide range of analysts who are adamant AirPods 3 will be here very soon. I’m impatient, so naturally I’m hoping they’re right and Ming-Chi Kuo is uncharacteristically wrong.
Things are looking less hopeful, however, since a cryptic leaker called L0vetodream in the last few hours has tweeted to suggest that AirPods 3 are not imminent. They also said that the current AirPods will not be discontinued yet.
Another rumor suggested that AirPods 3 would be announced at an Apple special event next Thursday, March 23. As you'll know from last week's AppleUnboxed, I had very little confidence such an event would take place. The fact that the event hasn't been announced by now all but confirms no event. That doesn't mean AirPods 3 won't arrive soon, but—sorry to break it to you like this—it could mean it's less likely.

It has a great balance of advanced features. There’s the identical design to Series 6, including a larger display than Series 3. Then there’s the fast processor found in last year’s Series 5, fall detection and a compass. Fall detection, by the way, means that if you fall down hard and don't get up for 60 seconds, the Watch sounds the alarm, calls chosen contacts and even the emergency services if necessary.

With Apple Watch SE you don’t get the latest health additions like ECG monitoring and blood oxygen measurement, but it has irregular heart rhythm notification and high and low heart rate notifications. These are found on the Series 3, too, but the SE has a more advanced optical heart sensor.

Of course, the other Watch features are here, like GPS so you can record your run accurately without your iPhone with you and, unlike Series 3, there’s the option of a cellular version so at the end of that run you can hail a ride home. Plus, sleep tracking, an always-on altimeter and access to the huge range of dedicated Apple Watch apps.

It comes in an aluminum finish, colored silver, space gray or gold.

Apple Watch Series 6 is brilliant, but the truth is that for many people, Apple Watch SE is the Goldilocks option: from price to performance, it’s just right.

When Apple released the HomePod mini a few months back, it turned heads not just because it looked cute, and was small enough to tuck into a corner in the most bijou of rooms, but also because of its price. $99? For an Apple product? That’s also the price of the Amazon Echo, which is also near-spherical in shape. Here’s how the two devices compare.

Audio quality Neither speaker is as good as the HomePod - though no smart speaker has quite managed to beat Apple’s original HomePod for audio even now - but the HomePod mini manages to outdo the Echo for a rich, warm sound. It really sounds fantastic, even if it can’t quite fill a room like its older sibling did. Turn it up too far and the music sounds less rich, though it doesn’t distort. Amazon’s speaker is good, but no match for the mini. Perhaps that’s because of this next section...

Smartness Amazon’s focus is firmly on the smart element of its speakers more than audio excellence, because the company sees that as the more important part of the equation, maybe. Siri, Apple’s virtual assistant, is great, but Amazon’s Alexa knows more and is more versatile. It’s fair to say that Siri has got a lot brighter and more knowledgeable but Alexa has the edge. For instance, ask whether Joe Biden or Donald Trump is taller and the Echo can report that the current president is around 3 inches shorter than the last one, while the mini merely sends you off to read details on the iPhone.

Features Apple’s HomePod mini includes neat extras like the cool way you can tap the mini with your iPhone to transfer music from smartphone to speaker instantly. Both have neat intercom features to allow you to tell the rest of the household that dinner’s ready, for instance. But Amazon’s features rest heavily in its smartness. Apple’s speaker lacks one thing and it turns out to be a nuisance in the U.K. There are no BBC radio stations on board, though the Echo lets you say, “Alexa, turn on Radio 4” happily enough.

Verdict If you’re an iPhone user (and as you’re reading this newsletter, that’s a fair guess), you can use either gadget easily, though there’s no integration of Spotify with the HomePod mini. There is, however, the facility to listen to Apple Music easily on the Echo. 

If smart is your priority, then Alexa is cleverer. Siri is no longer dumb, by any means, but Alexa is top of the class. On the other hand, the HomePod mini beats the Echo hands down for audio and beautiful design. It has better build quality, too. And for once in comparing Apple and Amazon, there's no price premium for the Cupertino product - which is an achievement in itself.

Comments, questions or complaints? All are welcome, well, the complaints maybe not so much, but try me. Drop me a line: appleunboxed@forbes.com.