“In an age when every day dumps a new whizbang product — a me-too smartphone, watch, tablet, fitness tracker, sound system, app—on consumers’ laps, there is something critical, something deeply human, being lost: design,” Clifton Leaf reports for Fortune. “Such was the provocative conclusion of an all-star panel of designers gathered at Fortune‘s Brainstorm Tech [held earlier this week].”
Leaf then goes on to supply the following quote in the esteemed pages of Fortune:
I’m actually highly disappointed by the Apple Watch. To some degree, Apple missed an opportunity to redefine why the tiny screen is on our wrist at all. I’m an Apple admirer and hoped for an ‘iPhone moment.’ This wasn’t it. — Gadi Amit, principal designer at the San Francisco-based NewDealDesign
Full article, tucked safely behind donotlink, here.
MacDailyNews Take: “Apple admirer” Gadi Amit is “highly disappointed by the Apple Watch.”
Oh, no! This is just terrib… uh, wait, WTF is Gadi Amit?
Gadi Amit is not only the principal designer, but also the founder of NewDealDesign which, according to their website, is responsible for the design of the Fitbit Flex, the Fitbit Force and the Fitbit Wellness Tracker.
Neither Clifton Leaf nor his Fortune editor(s) saw this information as germane to their article (if Leaf or they knew this rather easily-obtainable fact; if there even are any Fortune editors overseeing this piece besides Leaf himself).
A 3-second perusal of NewDealDesign’s website would seem like something even a cub reporter, much less an “Editor at Fortune Magazine,” as Leaf’s Twitter description reads, would undertake if they’re going to quote someone. That’s just basic journalistic due diligence, right?
We’re sure the failure to disclose that an Apple Watch “critic” — under a headline blaring “Is Apple Watch a design flop?” — is the designer for an Apple Watch rival was just a innocent oversight.
Contact:
• Clifton Leaf: https://twitter.com/CliftonLeaf
• Fortune: http://fortune.com/feedback/
[Attribution: Macworld. Thanks to MacDailyNews readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]