It’s April and Apple has released their new Apple Watch. Did the 3D printing world notice? Apparently it did.
A brief skirmish with a few printable 3D model repositories quickly revealed a junior avalanche of new 3D models specifically addressing perceived issues with the new watch. Here’s our search results:
Thingiverse: 40 items
CGTrader: 36 items
Shapeways: 11 items
This is only the start, as you can imagine. Any device as popular as the Apple Watch appears to be will draw 3D designers forward to create “something” for it.
At this point we find the Apple Watch 3D models are a bit curious. Most of the time they are variations on stands for the watch, while others are intended as charging stands that incorporate the inductive charger.
We’re wondering why you need a display stand for a device that’s supposed to be on your arm? The Apple Watch includes many features centered on the idea of notifying you, as it is more “handy” than a phone buried in a purse or pocket. By placing the watch on a stand, you lose those features.
The most useful item we found was the “Apple Watch Screen Guard”, a small print that supposedly protects your crystal clear Apple Watch face from destruction when you inevitably drop it on a knobby concrete sidewalk. Practical, perhaps. Attractive, not so much.
It’s easy to jump on a popular topic and make 3D designs, but we hope the next wave of Apple Watch items are more practical. Perhaps that will occur when more people use the device and encounter challenges that could be overcome with the help of 3D printed “somethings”.
