Arun Venkatesan wrote a great piece on the various different historic watches that inspired the faces on the Apple Watch:
The Apple Watch is more than merely a smartwatch. In my review of the Apple Watch Series 6, I described how it sits at the confluence of design, technology, lifestyle, and watchmaking. This perfect blend of so many different disciplines and constraints puts it in a category all by itself.
Apple did this not by taking an age-old wristwatch silhouette and cramming some electronics in it. Instead, they carefully reimagined every aspect, from the user interaction patterns to the mechanism securing the interchangeable bands, the digital crown, the variety of cases and bands, and the use of watch terms like “complication” in the user experience.
In particular, the analog faces reveal what Apple does so well — taking the familiar and making it their own. Over the years, they have released quite a few faces with roots in history. Each one started as an iconic watch archetype and was remade to take advantage of the Apple Watch platform.
I'm by no means a "watch person", and if you simply showed me 10 iconic watches in person, I wouldn't have much interest. But I couldn't stop reading this. I find it fascinating how the various differences in watches came about, and also how much detail Apple put into their watch faces.
It's made me think of watches a lot differently, and while I don't think I'm going to go out and start a mechanical watch collection, I think I have a new found appreciation for watch face design.