We've talked a lot about phones here, but one of the more iconic Motorola products of the past few years wasn't a phone at all: it was the Moto 360 smartwatch. What was it that led you to go in with Android Wear?We had MotoActv which was our own wearable like four-five years ago, right? We were planning on doing Moto 360 and we had many tries, and landed on this direction that we have now with the round display. That's the only thing that really made sense in the market and moved the needle emotionally with consumers.
We had our own version of software that we were looking at. But when we looked at... all things considered, with the investment that Google was making into Wear, we just decided that that was the best solution for the consumer. Because the whole key here was to ensure that we had strong connectivity between the wearable and the smartphone. And the opportunities that we had with Android Wear and that seamless connectivity, and connectivity with all the services that Google had, was far more valuable to us than trying to build our own.
The interesting thing is, Android Wear did not originally have a round UI. It was rectangular. When [Google] saw what we were doing in 'round,' and the way we were driving things there, it prompted them to go and do 'round' and incorporate a round version of Android Wear.
In fact, the UI work for the very first one was a collaboration. Our designers were engaged in designing that first round UI for Android because it was the way for us to get it to market in time. And in the end result it all becomes Android Wear. And I think right now if you look at Android, the round [watchface] is the dominant factor.
So it's a very interesting story. We adopted it because of the power, for the consumer, of Android Wear and Google's software portfolio versus something we could do ourselves. But it was an interesting give-and-take, because we were able to maintain the essence of what we wanted to do also in terms of the round UI.
More here:
http://www.androidcentral.com/android-hist...rolas-jim-wicksIf it weren't bcs of Motorola, there wouldn't probably be any round Android Wear watches