Would you pay $40 for a water bottle? What about the best looking water bottle you’ve seen.
The square water bottle was the fruit of 3 years’ work by former Apple engineers and actually one of the best looking water bottles I’ve seen. They have taken the tool from something plastic, round, leaky that’s given away freely at corporate events to a luxe-feeling commodity. From the picture, it looks that Square has a very simple yet elegant design. However, it is actually composed of 16 components, which took 54 prototypes, 2 patent applications, and 3 years to make. What makes it desirable is not only its luxury look but the amount of effort used to make tiny adjustments that are intuitive and easy for the user. That includes unscrewing from both ends for easy cleaning, lip nozzle fitted so that water drop drip, quarter turn for easy opening of the device, audible locking sound to give the user assurance that the bottle is securely sealed, and much more. While it is innovative in that the bottle is square (so that it won’t roll away) the engineers still outfitted it such that it fits today’s appliances such as the car cup holder.
Now the question is, would you pay $40 dollars for this water bottle?