Wearable enclosure, sketch to production
Apple · Enclosure design
2025
Owned the mechanical design of a wearable’s enclosure: five parts that had to close to a flush, water-resistant shell thinner than the previous generation.
The problem
The new display stack was 0.4 mm thicker, but industrial design wanted the product thinner. Every part of the stack had to give something back without weakening the drop performance.
What I did
• Re-partitioned the midframe so the battery could sit 0.25 mm lower • Ran 40+ tolerance stack-ups to hold a 0.05 mm flush between glass and housing • Worked with the factory on gate locations to keep sink marks off cosmetic faces • Built and drop-tested six prototype builds, P1 to P6
Result
0.3 mm thinner overall, same drop rating, first-pass yield above target at mass production.
Details are described at the level of public product information. (In this fictional example, everything is invented.)