Why 9:41 AM is always the time displayed on iPhones and iPads

I think the article missed some very interesting aspects of this story. First of all, why bother setting the time in the first place? I think it&#x27;s because having many different times in different ads&#x2F;websites&#x2F;docs looks sloppy. There&#x27;s also the chance of someone working late (2:00 am) or having a strange time such as 20:02 or 11:11. These are very minor but could be distracting in high-profile ads or consistent docs. Much simpler to just say that all time displays will be a simple 9:41 (time 0 in the age of the iPhone, essentially).<p>I would be more interested in how they implement this. I assume there is an internal style guide somewhere mandating the use of 9:41. But are people who make the images (photographers, marketing, web team, doc writers) supposed to set the devices (or their clocks) manually? Do they have corporate photoshop scripts for setting the time in &quot;post-production?&quot; Maybe there are test settings (later removed for shipped code) that allow the time to be &quot;frozen&quot; so all screenshots look natural at the desired time. Can anyone inside Apple tell us?

HTC used to have an iconic clock on their Android handset, for which they always used 10:08 in marketing materials.<p>This probably stems from a tradition in advertisements for analog watches. They are usually set to some time between 10:08 and 10:10. Not only is this setting symmetric and therefore pleasing to the eye, but also any printed brand name is clearly visible and unobstructed.

Google also uses specific times in their screenshots. But the times match up with the version of Android it is running.

Anywhere else I have ever worked has pretty much always used 4:20 in the UI as a joke. When I started work as UI&#x2F;UX lead at a bank a year ago, all the process work that was done with the previous team had some arrangement of 4:20 worked in everywhere haha.

Our original blog post, if anyone is interested in the original source: <a href="http://www.secretlab.com.au/ipad-day-941-am" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.secretlab.com.au&#x2F;ipad-day-941-am</a>

Nokia usually uses model numbers. 9:20 for Lumia 920, for example.

Similarly, Free (the ill-named ISP and mobile phone provider run by Iliad in France) uses &quot;13:37&quot; on most ads as a geek joke (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leet" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Leet</a>).

Another story, why casio watches are always at 10:58:50<p><a href="https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=casio+digital&amp;tbm=isch" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;encrypted.google.com&#x2F;search?q=casio+digital&amp;tbm=isch</a><p><a href="http://mygshock.com/wiki/Trivia#Why_do_all_Casio_promotional_photos_show_10:58_as_the_time.3F" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;mygshock.com&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Trivia#Why_do_all_Casio_promotional...</a>

I don&#x27;t see anyone has discussed it yet, could it be an advertising technique? You can create a cognitive bias in this fashion, by showing a high number like 941 the customer is less likely to balk at a sale price in the high hundreds. Where if they were pre-exposed to a low number say 3.15 they will probably find a 900 dollar price tag too much.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_bias" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Cognitive_bias</a><p>Another thought is maybe that 9.41 is a lot of peoples reading in bed time, or taking notes in a meeting at work time. Easy to picture yourself using one at those times.<p>Or maybe its just a clean number that shows the correct orientation of the tablet&#x2F;phone if you read it upside down

I love these little details. I remember walking past the billboard in front of a not-yet-opened Samsung store that showed the Galaxy Gear and some other Galaxy Smartphones. All devices had different times on them.

Actually, OS X releases up until Snow Leopard the clock was set to the version of the OS. 10:10 for OS X 10.1 for example.

Here is a 2010 article, also on TUAW, about the same thing: <a href="http://www.tuaw.com/2010/04/12/9-41-9-42-the-secret-of-apples-reoccurring-numbers/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tuaw.com&#x2F;2010&#x2F;04&#x2F;12&#x2F;9-41-9-42-the-secret-of-apple...</a>

I once setup all of the times in our app screenshots to be the octal representation of our company name.<p>i.e. 1:02 - b 1:14 - l 1:01 - a 1:32 - z 1:05 - e

I wonder if it&#x27;s a coincidence that 1, 4 and 9 are also the squares of the first three natural numbers. And, consequently, of course the relative dimensions of these: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monolith_%28Space_Odyssey%29" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Monolith_%28Space_Odyssey%29</a>

can someone answer why 4:20?

Mine has 4:20PM all the time. Does anybody know how to fix?

TMYK - I love stuff like this :-P

Hehe. Interesting and kind of strange. If it&#x27;s so important that the screen-shot shows the current time when it is displayed why not just have it show the correct time with a program? It doesn&#x27;t seem like that would be terribly difficult.

Imagine having to reprint brochures, reshoot something or even have to tinker around with the clock so all your screenshots are 9:41.<p>There are cute quirks and there is attention to detail. But at some point or another it becomes a cultish bureaucracy no one knows the origin of demanding that all clocks alway show 9:41 for some long lost reason.