Is The New Samsung Gear A Perfect Circle?

We’ve known about Samsung’s seventh (yes, seventh) smartwatch — the Gear A — for some time now. Originally dubbed Orbis, the wearable’s specs were leaked a while back, and the device — running Samsung’s in-house Tizen OS — promises to be the most unique of the Apple Watch competitors currently in the offing.

I’m actually pretty excited to see how Samsung sheds its “Samesung” monicker with this thing, and how the company — untethered from Android Wear’s abysmal design — actually imagines the digital circular interface. If they do it well, it’ll be a major feat and a feather in the cap for a brand otherwise known as a pretty brazen mobile copycat. Should the Gear A offer a compelling user experience, it will have done something Apple could not: make a round-screened smartwatch that works.

Which is something I have no doubt Apple tried to do.

Based on the Apple Watch software’s overt circular design cues, I’m pretty convinced that the first wearable prototypes out of Cupertino were bound by the round. Further, I assume that — based on Marc Newson’s illustrious Ikepod past — that the things were big and chunky and generally unfriendly to component and battery fitment in a unisex package. But I don’t think that was the whole reason Apple erred on the side of the squared. I think the company just couldn’t fully nail down the software side of things to its satisfaction, perhaps relying too much on their past mobile work to think fully outside the box. Still, some elements of the circle remain, and Apple Watch’s app constellation in particular seems to be a carry-over from those early round-screen ideas. But I think Apple just couldn’t convince itself to take that leap on such an already risky project.

And that’s a pity, because I think a round-screened Apple Watch, done right, would have been a much more compelling device in both the fashion and tech realms than the safer — but still lovely — rectangle we got. I would’ve loved for Apple to have stepped on Google’s toes to show the competition how circles are done right.

But now, that’s Samsung’s job, and though we still dont have any actual product shots save for a hint of the above watch face (where all circular smartwatches have a huge upper hand), I’m as excited for the Gear A’s unveiling as I was for Apple Watch’s last year, just because the thing promises to be massively different. Of course, I know the thing also promises to be just plain massive, and while I’ve ridiculed its ridiculous rotating bezel input, I’m eager to see if the brand is finally able to show Apple a thing or two instead of year after year of the other way round.

Because for smartwatches, that other way — maybe even the better way — is round.