Now even Microsoft feels more playful than Apple, at least that's my impression. Designing beautiful products doesn't have to mean that you're stuck up and can't embrace experimentation every once in a while. I miss the times when Apple used to come up with goofy stuff.

The exception being the Apple Watch, which has lots of playful elements, from the drawing feature, to the heartbeat, to the activity achievement awards and the animated emoji.

Drawing and emoji are just normal expectations of an interactive device with a screen, heartbeat stuff is just proximity of the device to biology, and whatever the fuck activity achievement awards are, if something named that is now considered play, then Huxley scores yet another point.

Indeed. If this were the old Apple the devs would have snuck in an easter egg which changes the watch face to a mouse-like cartoon character that totally isn't a copyright violation, honest.

Not sure if you're serious, but I don't think the fact that Apple is influential enough to be able to get the mouse as a legitimate face makes it not as playful.

Also, if the parent hasn't seen it, Apple Watch's particular brand of animated emoji is rather unusual - I think it's somewhat garish, unusually for Apple, but it's certainly an attempt at... something. Drawing is certainly not a normal expectation for such a tiny screen; measuring heartbeats is one thing, but sharing them is another, and... yeah, I shouldn't bother responding to trollish comments.

Off topic, but do people truly feel Googles current culture is playful? The last couple of years have seen Google aim far more for professional and corporate than play, in my opinion.