Apple is a notoriously secretive company, only revealing officially what they are working on at carefully coordinated events and live streams. However, our sibling publication, Wallpaper, has been granted exclusive access to the Apple design team.

While Wallpaper did not have access to the work on the rumored iPhone 14, MacBook Air 2022, and AirPods Pro 2, we did get a taste of the relentless approach Apple is taking to product design and finishing. [For example, Wallpaper discussed the Apple Watch design process with Cupertino designers. The team explained that they had pondered a series of questions regarding the physical notification system and the smartwatch. The designers had to carefully consider how strong, how long, and how natural the Apple Watch's sense of touch should feel.

When discussing the Apple Watch Series 7, which topped our list of best smartwatches, the design team noted that the debut of the large display came from an iterative design process in close collaboration with the engineering team. And this partnership goes back to the original model and its iconic digital crown, which is arguably somewhere between design and engineering.

"We wanted to merge software and hardware," designer Molly Anderson told Wallpaper.

"The crown was born out of referencing the history of watches and realizing that we needed a physical mechanism and tactile input to make the Apple Watch something completely different from the idea of wearing an iPhone on your wrist."

The same can be said about Apple's approach to AirPods: according to Wallpaper, the development of the wireless earbuds began over a decade ago. It was ergonomist Christy Bowery who studied the "crazy complex" structure of the human ear and incorporated it into the design of the earbuds, which are on the list of best wireless earbuds.

"We molded and scanned the ear and worked with nearby scholars to focus the earphone design on the outer ear and the acoustics on the inner ear," Bauerly says.

Apparently, thousands of ears were scanned and a database created to begin the design process. If you enjoy the fit and feel of the AirPods Pro, that's why.

If you're wondering why Apple placed the three rear cameras in a pseudo-triangular layout on a rectangular module, it's also due to the particular design.

It took another rallying of design, software, and hardware engineering to focus on providing smartphone photography worthy of our best smartphone camera list, not merely sleek and beautiful.

Wallpaper explained that Apple's design team had to take into account that the iPhone 13 design had to take into account how the camera lenses are grouped and separated, while at the same time the software had to take into account the dials and traditional He explained that they must also consider how the software can evoke the feeling of working with dials and traditional analog devices.

Not only did this require a great deal of research, but also looking through vintage cameras and perusing their typefaces and even control layouts. Once again, the ease of use of the iOS camera app and the virtual feeling of implicitly adjusting the zoom with a software dial are due to the efforts of Apple's design team.

Given this, it is no wonder that the images in the Wallpaper article showcase workspaces that seem to have something in common with those of fashion brands and high-end interior design firms.

The snaps of the iPhone 13 Pro camera module and the Apple Watch digital crown being assembled give the impression of a bespoke jeweler's workshop rather than the initial process of a device that will ship in the millions.

The workshop is actually in a separate location from Apple's main Infinite Loop camp, in a reasonably impressive building that does not have the eye-catching circular design of the main headquarters.

And according to Wallpaper's extensive coverage, the spirit of Apple co-owner Steve Jobs still looms large. The full Wallpaper article is available online and in print for a complete breakdown of Apple's journey into the design world.

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