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Smiley Alarm Clock is how the selfie generation wakes up
Capitalizing on the selfie craze, the Smiley Alarm Clock aims to start your morning off with a smile. Unfortunately, the app, which requires iOS 7.1 and works on the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, leads to frustration and general annoyance. The concept is simple. When the alarm goes off you grab your phone and pose for a morning selfie. In theory, the app snaps a photo and the alarm turns off when it detects your smile. Once Smiley Alarm Clock takes your photo you can share the picture on Instagram or Facebook. Undoubtedly you'll include the hashtag #iwokeuplike this, or something similar. But who wants to take a picture of their morning face, let alone share it with the world? Not me. You couldn't even pay me to do it, as is evident by the loads of makeup I'm wearing in these pictures. I'm sure there are people who do this under the safety of Instagram filters, but Smiley Alarm Clock has zero filters to hide the bags under your eyes. Beyond the problematic concept, there are two major flaws with the app itself. You'll notice that I used the phrase "in theory" earlier and that's because the app doesn't do what it says it does. I spent a full 60 seconds smiling my face off and the app never took a photo and never shut off the alarm. You can manually shut off the alarm, but then what's the point of the app? This happened more than once, leaving me extremely frustrated. I tested this out in the afternoon; pretty sure it would've left me enraged had this happened at 7am. The second flaw is somewhat amusing but mostly annoying. You would think that the app would take your photo when your face is positioned nicely in the center of the screen and you look awesome. Nope. I took about 15 test shots and all but two of them turned out decently. A few of them only captured my forehead and eyes because the app didn't wait for me to position my phone correctly. Considering the camera is supposed to be triggered by a smile, those were pretty odd photos for it to take. Most of the time, I had to move my phone around randomly until it took a picture. These were the most unflattering pictures ever and were taken from very weird angles. They will never see the light of day. I wouldn't be surprised if the developer is deliberately trolling us here. Oh, and you don't even have to smile for it to work. Incidentally, this image sums up exactly how I feel about this app. When you're already not a morning person, the last thing you want is to fake a smile and pretend you don't hate how you look when you haven't had your first cup of coffee. However, if you are really into how you look in the morning, Smiley Alarm Clock is available for free in the App Store with an in-app purchase for extra alarm sounds.
The Barisieur alarm clock automatically brews coffee while you wake
It's no secret the first five minutes of consciousness for many of us each morning involves brewing a cup o' joe. Well to help get a jump-start on things, designer Joshua Renouf has developed a striking alarm clock that starts the process before you even get out of bed. Using induction heating and stainless steel ball bearings, the Barisieur boils water for pour-over brew, giving off the aroma of your favorite beans as you rise to start the day. There's even a cooled slot for a spot of milk and storage for sugar and extra grounds. Renouf plays up the ritual of loading the unit before nodding off as an activity that helps alert the body that it's time to catch some shut-eye. Though there's only one for now, plans are in motion to produce the multitasker that's said to retail for £150-£250 (around $250-$420). While a retail option is in the works, we should have ample time to stash away our loose change.
WoW Archivist: What has never changed?
WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? With WoW's tenth anniversary fast approaching, one thing is clear: virtually everything in this game has been changed, updated, or replaced at one time or another. The UI, the stats, character creation, raid systems, class abilities, questing -- all have undergone necessary overhauls to keep the game relevant and modern. A question for the Queue last month asked a very interesting question: What in WoW has never, ever changed? You might think so, but no Many aspects of the game seem like they have never changed, but they have. The act of gathering: Sure, Blizzard added bonuses to the professions in Wrath such as the crit bonus for skinning or the HoT from herbalism. And as of Cataclysm, you can now earn XP by gathering. Gathering no longer requires tools. Yet the fundamental mechanics have always been the same: you right click stuff, get the stuff, and skill up so you can click on better stuff. Right? Back in classic, gathering actually had a chance to fail. Orange difficulty nodes would not cough up their resources to anyone who wandered past with the minimum required skill. Failing three or four times on a node before a successful gathering attempt was not unheard of. This led to some interesting "PvP" gathering scenarios, even on PvE realms. If two players converged on the node, the first to click it didn't necessarily get the goods. This situation sometimes led to a hilarious "duel" in which both players failed at gathering over and over again. It became a matter of luck, persistence, and rapid clicking. Mining was especially bad, because it used to take multiple strikes to clear out a node. Two players could spend minutes trying to outmine each other on a single rock. Racial bonuses, enchantments, and items that boosted gathering skills all mattered much more, not just to save time from the failed attempts, but to beat other players to the punch.
ALARMclock forces you to seize the day by telling you how many you have left
"Nothing gets you up in the morning like the things that keep you up at night." So goes a tagline on ALARMclock's Kickstarter page. Sure, we've seen other bedside timepieces that encourage alertness by making you use brain or body, but as its creator Fig says, ALARMclock doesn't wake you up, it "efficiently ends dreaming." Hazy images of flying unicorns will soon dissipate as ALARMclock reminds you of your "financial instability, social insecurity and fear of death." Simply made from a bamboo enclosure and 32 x 8 LED display, the heart of the sadistic clock is a WiFi-connected Raspberry Pi. Using a computer or mobile device, you can ask ALARMclock to pull your bank account balance (or other depressing personal finance info), aggregate the number of (virtual) friends you have or, worst of all, estimate your remaining life expectancy. A "morning dose of cold hard reality" is available for the next 20 days to pledges of $85 or more over at Kickstarter. While Fig is listed as the maker of ALARMclock, we can't help but think Aperture Science is involved somehow. Check out the pitch video to see what we mean.
Laser-powered atomic clock fuels temporal pedants' ire
If you thought that your regular atomic clock, which loses a second once every few years, is adequate for your needs, then Dr. Jerome Lodewyck wants a word. His team at the Paris Observatory claims to have invented an atomic clock which only loses a second every three centuries. Rather than measuring the oscillations of caesium atoms, the "Optical Lattice Clock" uses a laser to excite strontium atoms which vibrate much faster and are, therefore, more accurate. Of course, it's a cruel irony that just as soon as someone's plonked down $78,000 on a Hoptroff No. 10, a rogue gang of scientists find a way to make it obsolete.
iOS 7 Clock app icon shows the current time... to the second
As more and more developers are getting their hands on the iOS 7 beta, we're starting to hear about some rather interesting little touches. The latest? The iOS 7 Clock app icon shows the current time, complete with moving second hand. This is according to an unnamed developer who sent in the above image and who is probably breaking the developer NDA... The clock is synchronized to the device's time, so that the red second hand reaches 12 just when the time indicator in the status bar changes to the next minute. Previous versions of the Clock app simply showed the clock stuck at 10:15 -- now the icon is dynamic. Perhaps we'll begin to see more dynamic icons coming from Apple and third-party developers in the future. There's also been some discussion over at iDownloadBlog.com about a page on the Apple website that shows somewhat different icons for some apps than what are seen in the current beta. Whether those are indicative of past or future designs is unknown. As one of our bloggers so succinctly put it, "BREAKING: Beta software contains icons that may be a work in progress (developing)."
Physicists construct the most accurate clock the world has ever seen
Calling a clock the most accurate ever may sound like hyperbole, but physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado have built a pair of devices that can claim that title. The team used an optical lattice to address an issue that plagues atomic clockmakers: constantly shifting frequencies that negatively impact the accuracy of their measurements. For example, a single second can be defined by the frequency of light emitted by an atom when electrons jump from one state to the next, but those frequencies change as the atom moves. The optical lattice essentially suspends atoms to minimize the Doppler effect produced by that movement. By combining the lattice with the element ytterbium, the group was able to create a device that measures time with a precision of one part in 1018. To put that into perspective, Andrew Ludlow, one of the paper's authors, said, "A measurement at the 1018 fractional level is equivalent to specifying the age of the known universe to a precision of less than one second." To read more about the team's work, you can find the full PDF at the source.
Hoptroff's atomic pocket watch is the ultimate rich guy accessory
So, you've made a fortune, bought a sports team, own a spaceship and drive a neon pink Batmobile. If you were worrying that there were no more extravagant purchases to be made, you were wrong. Luxury timepiece maker Hoptroff has just teased details of its latest method of parting you from your money -- a pocket watch with its own atomic clock. Unlike your average radio-receiving watch, the Hoptroff No. 10 will apparently contain a Symmetricom caesium gas chamber (pictured after the break), developed in partnership with the Department of Defense. The watch will be available in November and, if you get lost at sea with just a sextant, will double as a marine navigation device. Priced at £50,000 ($78,000), only twelve are to be produced, which you'll be able to buy provided you can pass the security checks necessary to carry "sensitive materials."
Twitter UK's #Flock cuckoo clock shares time and tweets alike (video)
The concept of a Twitter-aware cuckoo clock has certainly been done -- just not by Twitter itself, until now. Twitter UK has teamed up with Berg to produce #Flock, a smarter-than-average clock that both marks time and pops out a bird whenever there are new followers, replies and retweets. It's comparatively simple underneath the wood, as a Berg Cloud developer kit links an arm mechanism to the owner's Twitter account. The trick will be owning one in the first place. As much as we'd like Twitter to sell #Flock on a general basis, the company is giving away its hand-built creation only to companies and people that "push the creative boundaries," which will mostly involve advertisers rather than any of us common folk.
Productivity Tip: Time for timers
Every day you have the same 24 hours as the rest of us to get what is likely a crushing amount of work done and out of your way so you can spend some time relaxing. Or, as one author has framed it, you have 168 hours in a week to accomplish what you want and move forward toward your goals. How do some people manage this while others are constantly rushing around late to everything? I was certainly guilty of this until I started minding my time in small chunks. Here are some ways to get those tactical moments -- the day-to-day stuff -- managed and under your control. What are you doing? At any given time, what are you doing? Probably the most significant thing you aren't doing is being mindful of the time you are spending on tasks. While the Pomodoro technique might not be for everyone, simply setting a timer to keep track of how long you're working on a given task is absolutely vital. At the end of the day you will have a better idea of where your time went, and by not getting bogged down in one or two things during the day, you'll find you can better cope with the myriad items you happen to be juggling. Think about it like this: How many times have you become engrossed in your work so much that you "lost track of time?" While being in a state of flow and working on something for a long stretch can be beneficial, over time you'll find that you tire easily and get "burnt out" after too many of these marathons sessions. You'll also find smaller stuff starts slipping through the cracks. Brain scientists and productivity experts agree that there are good reasons to break up marathon work sessions into smaller chunks. This is to avoid fatigue, primarily, but also so that you are making sure you get to all the stuff you have to do in a day, not just the one thing you're communing with that morning. Mindfulness Guess what? There's an app that ships with every iOS device currently made which will help you be mindful of your time on tasks. The Clock app has both a stopwatch and a countdown timer. If you use Siri, you can easily set a timer just by telling your iDevice for how long. But of course, there are dozens of timer and productivity apps on the store to help you out. First I'm going to explain what you should be doing, then I'll list some apps to help you out. Mindfulness has a specific meaning for Buddhists, but I'm really referring to the awareness aspect. By becoming more aware of how quickly time passes while our minds are engaged in a task, we can start to feel more in control of our daily tasks. Even emergencies (which I'll handle in a moment) won't throw our life into disarray if we have the knowledge of how our time flows at any moment. I cannot stress enough how important it is to be mindful of your time, and this doesn't mean checking the clock every hour or setting a chime. Being mindful of your time means you are setting the rules, you are taking control and you are paying attention. In the book 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think by Laura Vanderkam, one of her first suggestions is making a log of your time for an entire week. Everything, from brushing your teeth to making your bed to your commute and break times should be logged. While it sounds onerous, logging everything you do in a week is much like a very thorough physical exam. In this case you are getting an x-ray into your life. By seeing how much time you spend in the morning making espresso, you can determine whether that time is well-spent. A lot of what we do is wasted time, maybe because we're not familiar with a tool we use or maybe because we're still doing things manually when they could be automated. In any case, a complete time log is the first step to awareness and will lay bare which parts of your day are being spent doing wasteful things. Note that I'm not referring to recreation time, which I feel (like family time if you have kids) is a necessary thing. So is sleep, although I have yet to accomplish 8 hours a day of sleep as Vanderkam claims is possible! Once you see what you are doing and how long it takes you, it's time to start forcing yourself to be more mindful of your time. If you are the shortcut type, you may skip to this next part without a week's worth of data... Set a timer After you are done reading this article try an experiment. If you don't already time your tasks or use a countdown timer, try this: Choose a task to tackle next, something that's part of a project but not something you know will just take a couple of minutes, then set a timer for 20 minutes and see how far you get towards finishing that task. Pomodoros are 25 minutes, and then it is recommended to take a 5 minute break. Personally I like to go in 20 minute sprints, then take 10 minutes to read, make coffee or a snack, or just get up and walk. I find, since I work at home, that 10 minutes is enough time to handle light chores in-between work tasks. So that's it! Set a timer for 20 minutes, then get to work and do not look at the timer. If you were really engrossed in your work, that 20 minutes didn't exactly crawl by, did it? It never does. If you were bored, you likely kept wanting to look up to see how much time you had left. This is how time escapes us, as the perception of time is fluid in our brains. Once you begin to time yourself, you begin to really manage what you are doing, and time becomes just a metric for focus. The joy for me comes in knowing that, in an hour, I can likely work on two tasks (possibly to completion) and get a couple of chores done. Now multiply that by 8 (not that any of us works a mere 8 hours a day) and all of a sudden you are making steps towards completing all sorts of larger goals by forcing yourself to march to a drumbeat of small time chunks. If you pace yourself, you can go anywhere with this, just like a march in real life. Don't forget to budget time to be social, however. Emergencies and schedules What about emergencies? I have tried a regimented schedule, and frankly, it isn't for me. I'm not the guy who gets up at 6am every day, refreshed and ready to start another day carefully portioned out in hour-long blocks. For one thing, my life is messy. For another thing, the news business isn't really conducive to careful planning of one's day. Instead, I needed a way to handle the numerous emergencies at work and in life with my larger schedule and long-term goals. Here's how. First, you have to have goals. We'll cover this in another post, but for now let's just say it's impossible to know where you're going if you don't have a destination. All of your tasks are just steps toward that finish line. Next, you have to have priorities for those goals. As I said last time, I use OmniFocus to help me sort through all the things I have to do to determine, based on priority and time, what I need to do next. Only when you know what has to get done can you plan to do it. Yes, that sounds simplistic, but I find that a couple of times a year most of us could benefit from a housecleaning of our tasks and goals, otherwise we find ourselves swimming upstream with a constant torrent of downstream asks which can overwhelm us. If you know what you have to do each day (again, something we'll work on in future posts), handling emergencies actually becomes a lot easier. Yes, you will have to shift things around. No, you will not have to freak out about it. The secret is simple: Be mindful of your time. Also give yourself a break every so often. As an example, let's say you are going through email in a 20-25 minute block. You've set a timer, you dive in, and about 5 minutes into the task you see an email from your boss with the ominous, all-caps subject URGENT: RESPONSE REQUIRED. Knowing you have to respond to this, you open the email (still part of your "check email task") and read it. It takes another 5 minutes or so to read the email and scratch down a quick list of what needs to be done. As you look at the list of 3 things needed, you can break down what is needed to accomplish this emergency goal -- or not! If it's a report "due tomorrow without fail" you can probably finish your email session and then get to work. If it's due by the end of the day, it's time to reset that timer, take 5 minutes to clear your head and then restart the timer and get back to work! Again, if this is an emergency then everything else is on hold. By keeping at it in small, 20-25 minute sprints toward the finish broken up by short breaks, you can stay focused. You might even throw in a 20-minute "do something else" task if you start getting tunnel vision. The brain can only take so much, depending on your age, etc. Above all, don't panic. Know that like a brick mason laying brick by brick, over time your tasks will build towards the goal. Unless you are really terrible at what you do, you'll get there. Over time you'll learn to see how your pace is affected by longer sprints. At the end of the day you'll find you can say "I spend X hours on this" and you will feel good about the fact that you put the time in. If you didn't get that emergency handled, you'll probably know why that happened, too. It wasn't because you weren't focusing on what needed to be done! The other thing about emergencies is that we have to push other stuff we had hoped to accomplish in a given day back, which leads to stress. By knowing you can only spend so much time per day doing something, you'll feel less stressed knowing those time blocks will be there tomorrow, and whatever derailed your plans for today can hopefully be cleaned up for a fresh attempt in the morning. As for schedules, we'll talk more about them in another post, but for now it's important that you stop thinking about your day in terms of appointments, and think more about what you're trying to accomplish every day. Do your best to minimize distractions on your calendar, as in your life. Timers help you focus, as long as you don't get distracted during those times. Apps that can help I've tried a number of timer apps but have settled into only using a few. As you can imagine, too many choices means you'll just trip up on what to use, and when. So I keep it simple, but I'm mentioning a few apps I think may be interesting to some of you, since you're not all as loose with a daily schedule as I am. On iOS: Clock Well, this is free and from Apple and you have no excuse not to use the Timer function starting today. While Apple's Clock is a no-frills affair, you can set your own alert sound and the timer is Siri-enabled, if you're into that sort of thing. Untime I love this timer app for a number of reasons. It's free, it's fast and it looks cool. Not only that, the dots on the screen are like sands in an hourglass, showing you at a glance how much time you have remaining without numbers (until the last 10 seconds, when a countdown appears). I love that the numbers go away, so your brain only sees how "much" time you have remaining. The alarm is pretty great as well, and the whole app reminds me of something Tron might use. Untime is simple, elegant and cool -- just how I like my apps. Due My favorite across platforms, Due has been covered before. iCloud sync is a huge time saver when setting up task timers, however. And yes, I set multiple timers because a task of playing with Legos on the weekend with my kids takes longer than an email sweep -- this is called keeping your life balanced! 30/30 This might not be for everyone, but if you have a number of items to accomplish in a day that you do often, 30/30 is a very nicely designed app that helps you structure the order of those tasks and set timers to help you keep on target. I feel like 30/30 could benefit from a better ability to reset those lists, but on those days when I need a little more structure, 30/30 does an amazing job of helping me power through a hectic schedule. Timer Aptly named, Timer from App Cubby offers 12 slots for preset timers. I find something like this very handy if you have a number of timed things you need to do in a day. For example, I try to get in 40 minutes of cardio twice a day, so having that as a simple button makes it easy. I have a basic Pomodoro, a "sprint" of 20 minutes and a 5-minute timer all pre-set in Timer for when my day is fluid, but I still have some regimen to adhere to. App Cubby's apps are always beautifully designed, as well. (There are lots and lots of Pomodoro apps, so feel free to share your personal recommendations in the comments below.) On Mac: Due Again, since Due has a Mac version, setting timers and getting alerts doesn't get much easier, and again iCloud makes your efforts portable. ApiMac Timer If you're ready to get fancier, ApiMac's Timer is a power user's dream timer. While the free version is great, the pro version allows the app to do all sorts of awesome things like run AppleScripts, send email logs and can even put your Mac to sleep. Timebar Timebar is a minimalist's dream. It sits in the menu bar, allowing easy access to set a timer. Better yet, it shows a progress bar in the menu bar itself, and as the menu bar "drains" you have a good idea of how much time you have left on a task. For me, this only enhances my stress if I'm under pressure. For others, this might be a way to gamify certain tasks that you hope to do faster. But it's cheap, efficient and effective and offers a snooze button when you need more time. Howler Our own Kelly Hodgkins recommends this one, and if you use Growl, Howler can hook into it. Howler offers a lot of features you might not need, but if you find a basic timer isn't cutting it, or you need to loop or chain timers (perhaps you have a series of tasks which rely upon a sequence), check it out. There's also an iOS version. Wrapping up Even if you do nothing else to make your life more productive, the simple act of being aware of your time spent can have a profound impact in your happiness. When I discovered how much time I had spent mucking about in email, I began training to help change that behavior (and yes, we will cover email in another series of posts). As a result, I got about an extra hour of work time in each day without having to stay later than usual. If you feel frustrated that you can't get things done, start logging what you do and how long it takes, then start breaking up your day into manageable timed chunks no more than 30 minutes at a time. Within weeks you'll find that you feel happier and more in control than ever, and you'll know where you can improve. Don't worry about fancy tools or tricks, just keep a timer going, pause for breaks, then get back to it. Unless you are Sisyphus you will find that eventually you've rolled that boulder up that hill.
Did Apple pay more than $20 million for Swiss clock design?
Apple's iPad has a gorgeous Swiss-inspired clock that may have cost the company millions. According to a report in the Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger, Apple paid the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) 20 million Swiss francs (US$21 million) for the rights to use the iconic clock face in iOS 6. The brouhaha over the clock emerged in September when the SBB criticized Apple for using the railway clock, which was designed by Hans Hilfiker for the SBB and has become a symbol of Swiss innovation and reliability. The SBB met with Apple, which signed a licensing deal to use the clock face. Details of the agreement were not disclosed, and the SBB has refused to comment on this latest report. [Via AllThingsD]
Swiss clock licensee 'surprised' that Apple can use clock design
Earlier this week, Apple secured a license from the Swiss Railway to use its iconic Swiss Clock on the iPad. This agreement was lauded by the SBB, but it wasn't so favorably received by Swiss watch maker Mondaine, according to a report in MacWorld UK. The watchmaker has held an exclusive license to use the design since 1986 and said it was surprised by the SBB's agreement with Apple. "Mondaine holds a long-term exclusive licensee according to a contract with SBB to produce, distribute and market watches and clocks based on the SBB design since 1986 and got surprised to hear about a license agreement between SBB and Apple." Despite losing its exclusivity, Mondaine is looking at the bright side of the agreement. "Apple shows great taste by choosing this design for their clock on their devices," said Mondaine co-owner Andre Bernhei. "And now, the owners of Mondaine watches and clocks as well as iPad owners can even enjoy the same distinct design."
Apple agrees to licensing terms over Swiss clock design
The Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) and Apple have reached a licensing agreement that'll let Apple use the SBB's iconic clock design in iOS 6. Last month, the Swiss national railway criticized Apple for copying the look of the classic clock face without permission in the clock app on the iPad. Engineer and designer Hans Hilfiker designed the railway station clock in 1944. It has since become an icon for Swiss innovation and reliability, and its design is present in train stations throughout Europe. Rather than ban Apple from using the clock, the SBB decided to seek "an amicable agreement and compensation" with the Cupertino company. Details on the amount of money Apple had to pay to continue using the design were not revealed. [Via The Verge]
Apple agrees to license for Swiss railway clock in iOS 6, knows what time it is
When Swiss federal railway organization SBB and the Mondaine Group pointed out that the iOS 6 clock face looked remarkably like theirs, they weren't so much upset as clearing their throat politely -- it would be nice to get credit, if you don't mind. That kindness has been met with some reciprocity, as SBB has confirmed a licensing deal with Apple that gives the iPad builder rights to use the iconic timepiece in its mobile OS. Exact terms aren't forthcoming, although it's likely not a princely sum when SBB is better known for punctuality than wheeling and dealing. All we know is that Apple can at last live with a good conscience when it checks the time in Geneva.
Alt-week 9.29.12: 3D pictures of the moon, 4D clocks and laser-controlled worms
Alt-week peels back the covers on some of the more curious sci-tech stories from the last seven days. Dimensions, they're like buses. You wait for ages, and then three come along at once. And then another one right after that. While that might be about where the analogy ends, this week sees us off to the moon, where we then leap from the third, right into the fourth. Once there, we'll learn how we could eventually be controlled by lasers, before getting up close and personal with a 300 million-year old bug. Sound like some sort of psychedelic dream? Better than that, this is alt-week.
Apple reportedly meeting with Swiss Federal Railway over iOS 6 clock
Remember that iOS 6 clock the Swiss Federal Railway (SBB) said Apple copied from them? It seems they'll be sitting down together soon to discuss an arrangement. As noted by CNET, the SBB doesn't necessarily want money from Apple and is "proud" its design wound up in iOS 6. I'm not sure what they want (perhaps a Swiss logo on the clock?), but we'll keep you posted.
Swiss railway says it's 'proud' Apple is using its iconic clock design, still wants to get paid
If you thought the new iPad clock app in iOS 6 looked a little familiar, you're not alone. The design is a near-exact replica of the iconic Swiss railway clock designed in 1955 by Hans Hilfiker and since licensed for use in Mondaine watches. Not surprisingly, both Swiss railway operator SBB and the Mondaine Group have also noticed the striking similarity, and they say they're now looking at ways to remedy the situation with Apple. For its part, an SBB spokesperson tells Reuters that "SBB isn't hurt, but proud that his icon of watch design is being used by a globally active and successful business," while Mondaine co-owner Andre Bernheim notes that "the app is pretty much identical to our Mondaine watch," and adds that these "three companies together -- Apple, SBB and Mondaine -- can together achieve something positive. We'll see how this all ends up." Apple has yet to offer a comment on the matter. Jump past the break to compare the two for yourself.
Swiss Federal Railways accuses Apple of copying its clock
Switzerland's Schweizerische Bundesbahnen (Swiss Federal Railway service) has accused Apple of copying its iconic clock in the new Clock app for iPad [Google translation], introduced with iOS 6. The Hans Hilfiker-designed clock has become a symbol of Switzerland itself. The newspaper article notes that Apple Switzerland declined to comment. The clock face has been licensed elsewhere. [Via MacRumors]
iOS 6: The iPad Clock app
The fact that the iPad never had its own built-in Clock app always seemed like a curious omission. After all, the iPhone has had one from the day it launched; I don't know about you, but the iPhone's alarm is what wakes me up every weekday morning. In iOS 6, that strange exclusion ends, as the iPad now has its very own Clock app. Does this mean the App Store's glut of third-party alarm clock apps has been Sherlocked now? Should developers of such apps start shaking in their shoes over Apple's offering? Hardly. The new built-in Clock app on the iPad satisfies only the most basic of user needs, and the user interface is such a weird hodgepodge of design elements that it almost feels like someone issued this as a challenge to an intern: "Here, go make a Clock app for the iPad. Don't spend too much time on it." If you're familiar with the Clock app on the iPhone, you'll find few surprises here. The basic functions are the same: World Clock, Alarm, Stopwatch and Timer. World Clock is probably my favorite interface in this app and the only part of it that seems up to Apple's usual design ethos. The design is rather evocative of old 1960s world clock designs, and basic weather info shows on the map for each city you add. Tapping on any of the clocks brings up a truly enormous, fullscreen clock like the one in this post's main image. The Alarm section of the app has a basic viewer at the top showing the time of any selected alarm. The bottom two-thirds shows a weekly viewer that will display any alarms you've set up. Strangely, alarms in this section aren't draggable to new times, even though they totally look like something you should be able to tap and drag around. Setting up a new alarm uses a UI essentially identical to that on an iPhone. iPad (3) users can also use Siri to set up or view created alarms; this is usually my preferred method. The Stopwatch portion of this app feels like the most ridiculous addition at first glance. I couldn't come up with any ideas for actual use cases until someone told me it would be handy for coaches or other trainers for sports. The design for this portion looks almost nothing like its iPhone counterpart, and to me it just looks weird and hastily thrown together. That thrown-together look persists in the Timer portion of the app, where once again UI elements from the iPhone have been pasted in and surrounded by strange, overly simplistic and not particularly engaging floating controls. Like the Alarm tab, all functions here can be set up with Siri commands on the iPad (3), and again that's my preferred method of interacting with the timer. If all you're looking for in a clock app is the bare minimum, this built-in app for the iPad might suit you fine. But it's certainly the least Apple-looking app I've seen from Apple in a while, and many aspects of its design just rubbed me the wrong way.
Chameleon Clock will startle people walking near your desk
Here's a cute universal app with limited utility but great creativity. Chameleon Clock, selling for US $0.99, captures the background behind your iPad or iPhone using the built-in camera, then superimposes the time and date above that scene. The result is an illusion of a transparent iPad or iPhone. It can be very startling if seen from the right angle, where background and live clip line up perfectly. Even if you are moving around, it's still a nifty background for the clock. If you tap the clock, letters and numbers toggle between white and black. Sliding your fingers up or down and the on-screen time and date fades to nothing. There are two modes with the camera. One picks up live video, the other looks at the color hues behind your device and renders a mix of colors. As the lighting in your room changes, the color wash changes. The app works in horizontal or vertical mode. This is a pretty basic clock. No alarms or reminders. I would have liked to see control over fonts, sizes and placement, but hey, it's main claim to fame is the ability to act like a chameleon. %Gallery-160952%
