Powered by a minuscule engine consisting of tiny springs, diminutive gears, and screws so small they barely register to the human eye, the mechanical watch is an anachronistic vestige of a pre-digital age. But for dedicated collectors, such technological obsolescence isn’t a concern. Indeed, the drawbacks of these machines for the wrist—their reliance on a human being as an energy source, their lack of uniformity within identical reference numbers, even their oft-finicky nature—are what gives them their considerable charm. Still, the engineers at Audemars Piguet are clearly not Luddites: What, they wondered, could be done to lend a chronograph the tactile feel of a smartphone? Certainly that would go a long way toward improving a connoisseur’s wearing and operating experience. Ever since the 1970s, developments in serial production and waterproofing meant that the force required to activate a chronograph pusher increased to roughly 1.5 kg along a travel (the term for the..
