10 amazing Apple Watch facts

Getting good Apple Watch facts and figures is tough, because the hype around Apple’s latest launch has lead many a writer to hyperbole.

First here’s one claim that you might hear that’s unlikely to come true: Apple is going to use 30 per cent of the world’s gold supply to make the Apple Watch.

As GoldSilverBitcoin says: “Any serious gold investor never took seriously the bold claim that Apple’s new phone might use up 30% of the world’s gold supplies. The reality is, Apple will be watering down its gold content.”

The gold Apple is using in the Watch Edition has less gold in it than usual. Apple gold is a metal matrix composite rather than a standard alloy. This is because Apple mixes its gold with ceramic. This Apple Gold article has more information on Apple’s metal matrix composite gold.

While it’s tempting to think of Apple’s metal matrix gold as cost saving, it’s actually to make the device much more stable. Apple gold is a harder and more scratch resistant than other forms of gold. Gold is, it turns out, a really rubbish material to make things from. It dents and bends easily. Jony Ive told The Financial Times: “the molecules in Apple gold are closer together, making it twice as hard as standard gold.”

Apple is also using another process known as Work Hardening to make its watch. This means that the metal in the watch is bashed around prior to being made. According to Engineer’s Edge this “produce[s] additional plastic deformation and the metal apparently becomes stronger and more difficult to deform”. So the metal is carefully stressed and reformed by Apple to make it more durable.

Jony Ive describes in his video how Apple doesn’t cast the gold into shape. Once the gold has been mixed and stressed it is cast back into ingots, and these are then precisely machined using an index cutter. According to Atomic Delights this enables Apple to control the dimensions of the ingot to within 0.01mm.

Apple doesn’t finish toughening up its gold. Once the watch shape has been cut; the gold shape is passed back and forth between two rollers. This takes a few microns out in each pass, which toughens the gold even harder.

While Apple uses a complex construction process to build the Apple Watch, the video shows with each watch being hand polished. This will also enable an expert human eye to gauge each expensive Watch Edition and ensure that it’s up to scratch (or scratch free, to be more precise).

The Apple Watch (the regular model) might not have toughened gold, but it isn’t just made from any old stainless steel. Apple is said to be working with ASM 316L steel, which is often referred to as “surgical steel” (because it is commonly used to create surgical instruments and implants).

Many people have an allergic reaction to wearing steel (it causes a rash on the skin). This is one of the main reasons we believe Apple is using surgical steel over a regular grade; the very reason this grade steel is used in medical instruments is because there is less seepage of metal particles (hence less reaction). Greg Koenig, co-founder of Luma Labs says: ” I suspect a large focus of Apple’s metallurgy and process design was on the nickel allergy issue.

Koenig also draws attention to a completely new process Apple seems to be using. The milling process often leaves tiny 0.5mm burrs that are razor-sharp. Apple appears to be using lasers to clean up the finishing defects from the Apple Watch. “I would consider this (quite long) blog post a success if the engineer or designer who thought that trick up reads this and knows that this is an astonishingly brilliant trick they cooked up. Bravo!” says Koenig. His amazingly detailed analysis of the Apple Watch production process brought much of Apple’s manufacturing process to light; it is well worth a read.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster expects Apple to sell 1 million Apple Watches in the product’s first weekend on the market. “I think the clear takeaway is this: The first quarter is going to be a decent quarter because of the fanboys. It’ll probably die down a little bit, and then this really goes vertical a year plus from now”.