Buzz Off, Jony Ive! Motorola Extends Moto Maker Tool To Moto 360 Smartwatch

Apple designer extraordinaire Jony Ive is never one to mince his words, and he sank his teeth into Motorola’s flesh earlier this month in an interview with The New Yorker. In the interview, Ive lambasted Motorola’s Moto Maker tool that allows customers to personalize their Moto X smartphones with a number of colors and textures.

“Their value proposition was ‘Make it whatever you want. You can choose whatever color you want,’” said Ive “And I believe that’s abdicating your responsibility as a designer.”

Let’s not forget that the Apple’s upcoming Apple Watch will be available in a number of finishes (dark/light aluminum, dark/light stainless steel, two gold color options) with numerous bands ranging from plastic to stainless steel to leather. But rather than expound upon the hypocrisy of Ive’s comments, Motorola is doubling down on its Moto Maker tool according to Wired, expanding it to the popular Moto 360 smartwatch.

Motorola's Moto Maker tool for the Moto 360 (Source: Wired)

According to analysis by Canalys, the Moto 360 is the “clear leader” in Android Wear shipments, so it makes since that Motorola is now giving customers more options to specifically tailor the smartwatch to their design tastes. The Moto Maker tool will allow customers to customize their Moto 360 at the time of purchase in four key areas: casing color (natural, black, gold), band (metal or leather), band size (23mm, 18mm), and watch faces (one of 11 watch faces will be selectable to display when the Moto 360 first “boots up”).

“We want to empower people, and ultimately people are going to be more emotionally connected to their device if they’re part of the design process,” said Dickon Isaacs, Motorola’s design director for wearables.

This gorgeous stainless steel band will finally be made available for the Moto 360

One other rather exciting bit of news that Wired confirmed is that the beautiful single-link band that was first displayed with the prototype Moto 360s that were first unveiled in March 2014 will be made available via the Moto Maker.

Unfortunately, we don’t have an exact date for when the Moto Maker service for the Moto 360 will be available, but we hope that it will come soon.