At Apple’s September 14th iPhone event, the most shocking thing was the lack of any clear indication on when the Apple Watch Series 7 would be available. What happened? The Series 7 was the thing I was most excited about. And now we’re all still waiting. Apple simply promised that it would be coming “later this fall”.
The fact that the release was left so open-ended leads me to suspect it won’t be available until November at the earliest. In the past when an iPhone model was delayed until October, Apple let everyone know that it was coming in October. If you’re only 4 weeks or less behind schedule, you have a fairly clear picture of what needs to happen to meet a one month delay. But when you over 4 weeks out, things get a little murky. It’s best not to commit to a date. Hence, the “later this fall”.
But why the delay? Apple is typically a pretty well-oiled machine when it comes to iPhone and Apple Watch releases. One theory is that Apple had a whole new design ready but made a late design switch due to manufacturing issues. This makes sense to me.
I’m not on board with those who think that this incremental update was the Series 7 design all along. If it was, it would’ve been ready to go with the iPhone 13.
I’ve been in manufacturing for well over 20 years and I’ve seen my fair share of manufacturing line holdups. But they usually arise late in the R&D phase. You have to build a full manufacturing line in order to get proper takt times. These times are necessary to estimate your full capital expenditure on additional lines. If you know you need X million units per week, you simply divide your desired output by your line capacity to estimate the number of lines you’ll have to build.
The last Apple Watch design was introduced with the Series 4 in 2018. That means Apple has had at least 3 years to work on the Series 7 redesign. If there were any “manufacturing issues” Apple would have ironed them out long ago.
Anna-Katrina Shedletsky is the former Apple Watch product design lead. In an interview with Leander Kahney of Cult of Mac, she confirmed that Apple works on what they call their “golden line” before they ever start construction of their actual Apple Watch production lines. This is how you meet deadlines. You flush out problems long before they become an issue because you uncover problems in advance. Companies that don’t do this, like Tesla, simply wing it and deal with the quality problems and blown deadlines later.
The fact that Apple was “ironing out manufacturing issues” in August of 2021 means that they were essentially still in a late R&D phase. They were wrapping up work on their golden line and about to start construction on all of their new lines in September. This is much too late for Apple. The reference line should have been done at least 6 months prior.
The manufacturing group can’t start working on the golden reference line until the design group finishes the specs. The only logical reason for Apple to be working on their golden reference line in August is because the Series 7 design wasn’t final. And considering that Apple had 3 years to finalize the design, it sounds like something major happened. Like a late design-change.
Naysayers of this theory say that it would be impossible for Apple to go back square one on a design so late in the game. But Apple wouldn’t have to. When I was working at Gateway Computers, we always had multiple designs to pick from. That way if one design didn’t work out, you had others to pick from. Plus, you wanted the design teams to feel a little sense of competition to really bring out their creative juices. I’m sure that Apple probably does the same thing.
If there was ever a square-edge design for the Apple Watch proposed, this current bulbous design was probably also presented at the same time. It is entirely possible that at a later time, Apple decided to pull the plug on the square-edged design and go back to the bulbous one.
Plus, the Series 7 looks like it simply is reusing many of the Series 6 components. So it’s not really an all new design any way. A lot of the work was done already. It’s possible that this really was done on short notice.
In any event, the fact that Apple’s September event came and Apple had no release date for one of their fastest growing and most important products means that something seriously went wrong. This was never part of the plan. Apple had over 3 years to get this right and they still didn’t have enough time. It seems obvious to me that the Series 7 design isn’t what was supposed to be offered this fall.
But why the delay? Apple is typically a pretty well-oiled machine when it comes to iPhone and Apple Watch releases. One theory is that Apple had a whole new design ready but made a late design switch due to manufacturing issues. This makes sense to me.
I’m not on board with those who think that this incremental update was the Series 7 design all along. If it was, it would’ve been ready to go with the iPhone 13.
I’ve been in manufacturing for well over 20 years and I’ve seen my fair share of manufacturing line holdups. But they usually arise late in the R&D phase. You have to build a full manufacturing line in order to get proper takt times. These times are necessary to estimate your full capital expenditure on additional lines. If you know you need X million units per week, you simply divide your desired output by your line capacity to estimate the number of lines you’ll have to build.
The last Apple Watch design was introduced with the Series 4 in 2018. That means Apple has had at least 3 years to work on the Series 7 redesign. If there were any “manufacturing issues” Apple would have ironed them out long ago.
Anna-Katrina Shedletsky is the former Apple Watch product design lead. In an interview with Leander Kahney of Cult of Mac, she confirmed that Apple works on what they call their “golden line” before they ever start construction of their actual Apple Watch production lines. This is how you meet deadlines. You flush out problems long before they become an issue because you uncover problems in advance. Companies that don’t do this, like Tesla, simply wing it and deal with the quality problems and blown deadlines later.
The fact that Apple was “ironing out manufacturing issues” in August of 2021 means that they were essentially still in a late R&D phase. They were wrapping up work on their golden line and about to start construction on all of their new lines in September. This is much too late for Apple. The reference line should have been done at least 6 months prior.
The manufacturing group can’t start working on the golden reference line until the design group finishes the specs. The only logical reason for Apple to be working on their golden reference line in August is because the Series 7 design wasn’t final. And considering that Apple had 3 years to finalize the design, it sounds like something major happened. Like a late design-change.
Naysayers of this theory say that it would be impossible for Apple to go back square one on a design so late in the game. But Apple wouldn’t have to. When I was working at Gateway Computers, we always had multiple designs to pick from. That way if one design didn’t work out, you had others to pick from. Plus, you wanted the design teams to feel a little sense of competition to really bring out their creative juices. I’m sure that Apple probably does the same thing.
If there was ever a square-edge design for the Apple Watch proposed, this current bulbous design was probably also presented at the same time. It is entirely possible that at a later time, Apple decided to pull the plug on the square-edged design and go back to the bulbous one.
Plus, the Series 7 looks like it simply is reusing many of the Series 6 components. So it’s not really an all new design any way. A lot of the work was done already. It’s possible that this really was done on short notice.
In any event, the fact that Apple’s September event came and Apple had no release date for one of their fastest growing and most important products means that something seriously went wrong. This was never part of the plan. Apple had over 3 years to get this right and they still didn’t have enough time. It seems obvious to me that the Series 7 design isn’t what was supposed to be offered this fall.
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