Marathon robots and ‘obsessive’ engineering: how Apple trained the Apple Watch

Apple has built an army of robots to stress test its running and workout features, as it looks to keep its algorithms and analytics ahead of its competitors.

The details emerged in a chat with Kevin Lynch, Apple VP of Technology, who heads up watchOS at the Cupertino-based company.

At the beginning the Apple Watch team were involved in tracking and training the Watch to do all manner of activities, from dog walking to running long distances. But Lynch revealed that the company now uses robots, put to work running marathons and other repetitive bio-mechanic activities, to keep feeding the algorithm with new data points.

“Internally we actually have robots that we’ve constructed that do these activities. We have robots running marathons every day, day in and day out, so that we can make sure that the devices are still acting as they should,” he said.

And that doesn’t just mean physical activities. The robots will talk to Siri as they run, to make sure that the Apple Watch is delivering the right responses in the right way.

“The robots will speak to Siri so we can measure the response time on Siri during the workout. There’s so much behind the scenes. It’s a lot of fun to be working on these things,” Lynch said.

We have robots running marathons every day, day in and day out, so that we can make sure that the devices are still acting as they should.

“Whenever we add new work out types, like Tai Chi for example, we get a bunch of people participating in those activities. We measure actual calories burned and then tune the algorithms to those activities,” he continued.

That means, for every exercise the Apple Watch tracks, people have been hooked up to masks and breathing apparatus to measure the calories being burned, by tracking every ounce of breath.

“Doing that for something like swimming was interesting,” Lynch explained. “How do you do calorimetry for swimming, because we have this equipment that you need to wear over your face?

Tai Chi was added in watchOS 8

Tai Chi was added in watchOS 8

“We actually had people in swimming pools swimming with the mask on, and then somebody walking alongside them next to the pool holding up the equipment above their head.”

And that doesn’t just apply to sports and medical features – but everything the Apple Watch does.

“In the early days we actually rented an apartment and we would have people go there and do everyday activities, while wearing prototypes of Apple Watch,” Lynch told us.

“Things like vacuuming, washing dishes and eating dinner. Walking the dog was a really tough one, so was pushing carts, which was really hard because you don’t get as much swing from your Watch.”

Experience takes time

Google Maps disappeared from watchOS

Google Maps disappeared from watchOS before coming back with full features in 2020

We also got time to speak to Kevin Lynch about the Apple Watch App Store. It’s taken a long time for app developers to really build the kind of apps we expect – and in some examples, such as Google Maps, full features didn’t arrive until 2020.

We were curious about the process and how the approach and ethos over Apple Watch apps have changed in the eight generations of watchOS.

“It does take some experience and some time to realise what’s right for this new medium – and the Apple Watch is a new type of medium,” Lynch said.

Complications are a key way people launch apps on the Apple Watch

Complications are a key way people launch apps on the Apple Watch

And that’s because people interact with the Apple Watch differently to how the company expected at the outset.

People are consuming information, mostly through watch faces and complications, which took us all a while to understand

“People are consuming information, mostly through watch faces and complications, which took us all a while to understand.”

“We’ve made the frameworks, internally, much stronger over the years. We started with the model that’s wholly different than what we’re doing now, which is independent apps running entirely on Apple Watch.

“There’s support for Swift and Swift UI, and the work we’ve done on complications has been really important for third party developers,” he added.

GoSUP and other watchOS apps

GoSUP and other watchOS apps

So what are the apps of choice for Apple Watch execs?

“There’s a really fun app that’s specific to paddle boarding called Go SUP and it’s an independent app, and it tracks metrics that we wouldn’t track in our apps. The other one is for surfing called Dawn Patrol,” said Deidre Caldbeck, Director of Apple Watch Product Marketing.

And after spending a few seconds diving into his Apple Watch, Kevin Lynch revealed his top apps:

“These days the air quality apps for me were really helpful in terms of understanding what’s going on and having that on my watch face. And another one I use almost every day is the Remote app to unlock my Tesla.”

‘Obsessed’ by watch faces

Portrait watch face

watchOS 8 saw more watch face love

With watch faces such an integral and unexpected part of the Apple Watch experience, how has Apple’s approach to watch faces changed?

The watch faces are just so core to what the watch is and how it, how it expresses itself and how and how it expresses your own personality we obsess over them

There was such a sparse selection for so long – we wanted to know why the company kept choices on such a short leash.

Lynch explained that Apple was “obsessed” by watch faces, because they’re so core to the Apple Watch experience.

“On the iPhone, the Apple app icon screen is kind of the home screen. But for Apple Watch, it’s really the watch face,” he explained.

Pride animated watch face

Watch faces are often animated – as well as displaying complications

“The watch faces are just so core to what the watch is and how it, how it expresses itself and how and how it expresses your own personality we obsess over them. The design effort and the engineering effort on the watch faces is significant. And, and we’ve, we’ve worked over time you’ve seen them evolving over time, obviously, that is continuing.”

Deidre Caldbeck was keen to point out that despite a controlled number of watch faces, there’s no lack of customization options:

“We have millions of ways you can customise the watch face and now with the Face Sharing, which we introduced last year with watchOS 7, we have the ability to create a face and share it.”

This has started to be taken advantage of by the likes of Facer, which has just revamped its Apple Watch face selection.

It’s clear that even as watchOS 8 is unveiled – presumably ahead of the Apple Watch Series 7 this Fall – that Apple is still pouring development into its smartwatch. And the company has adapted along the way. From apps to watch faces to marathon running robots – obsession is driving the Apple Watch.

And it’s paying off.

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