<p> <i> 14.50 pm </i> Report: Moto 360 Getting Moto Maker Treatment

Anyone can design a smartphone—even you and I. I'm not talking about the device's guts, screen, or any of its other absurdly complicated electronics; put the soldering iron and circuit boards away. I mean that Motorola lets you "design" your own smartphone via its Moto Maker tool.

With Moto Maker, you can pick the color of your phone's front, back, and trim, and even engrave your device if you so choose. Sure, it's not the same as designing a new product from the ground up, but it's at least a little head-nod toward helping you feel like you've made a device that's more themed to your interests and tastes.

Well, get ready to apply your designer's eye toward more products. According toWired, Motorola will soon extend Moto Maker to its Moto 360 smartwatch $249.99 at Best Buy.

Expect to have similar constraints for personalizing your smartwatch as your Moto X smartphone. Mainly, you'll be limited to kind and color: Pick one of two sizes for the smartwatch, up to three watch casings (silver, black, and gold), one of two different bands (leather or metal), and one of 11 watch faces that you'd like to have pre-installed onto your device. Yes, you can always go out and install more, if you'd like.

Even better, teases Wired, Motorola will allow you to return your smartwatch if it doesn't look as good in person as you perhaps expected it to when designing the watch. Motorola will even pay for the shipping; presumably, it's an enticement to send you back to the drawing board with a new smartwatch design, as we wager that Motorola would rather have your business in the end than have you turn to another smartwatch maker for a different product.

You won't find the same kind of customizations for Apple Watch (at least, not to the degree that Motorola is allowing its users to customize the Moto 360). And it seems to be a contentious point for the iconic device-maker—or, at least, for its chief designer.

"Their value proposition was 'Make it whatever you want. You can choose whatever color you want.' And I believe that's abdicating your responsibility as a designer," Apple's Jony Ive said in an interview with The New Yorker. Though he didn't name the company outright—or, at least, The New Yorker didn't publish it—it's not that hard to guess who he might have been talking about.

To Motorola, however, giving purchasers the ability to customize their devices as they see fit is a measure of "empowerment." And, company officials hope, one that will increase the connection between a user and his or her device—and Motorola, as well.</p>