Have you ever noticed when you buy a new analog clock or are walking down an aisle that sells clocks, that the hands point to 10 and 2? It's because the clock is smiling at you.
Most clocks I've seen anywhere just show the current time.
In fact it's very disturbing to come to an aisle of clocks and not have them all showing exactly the same [current] time. It feels wrong.
And who'd buy a stopped clock anyway? Even though you know it just needs batteries, it feels somehow dead/broken. Your subconscious tells you not to buy.
I like 25th frame theories as any other geek, but this is absurd.
The hands are at 10 and 2 because it looks aesthetically pleasing and visually balances the clock face. Calling it a smile is a heck of a stretch. It's more of an OK/checkmark then that a smile (and this is also a stretch).
In all of Apple's iPhone promotional images the time is always set to around 9:40 (sometimes I've seen 9:41/42). I'm not sure the reason behind it, but obviously in this case it doesn't look like it's smiling. Does anyone know the explanation for this?
The explanation I've heard is that they were trying to hit the time the iPhone was introduced on the Keynote screenshots. Not sure if they still do that or if it's mostly tradition now.
Thanks, that's right. I did a bit of searching a found an explanation from Scott Forstall.
Why the iPhone is 9:42:
"We design the (product launch) keynotes so that the big reveal of the product happens around 40 minutes into the presentation. When the big image of the product appears on screen, we want the time shown to be close to the actual time on the audience’s watches. But we know we won’t hit 40 minutes exactly."
And the iPad is 9:41:
Yeah! And for the iPhone, we made it 42 minutes. It turned out we were pretty accurate with that estimate, so for the iPad, we made it 41 minutes. And there you are – the secret of the magic time.
In fact it's very disturbing to come to an aisle of clocks and not have them all showing exactly the same [current] time. It feels wrong.
And who'd buy a stopped clock anyway? Even though you know it just needs batteries, it feels somehow dead/broken. Your subconscious tells you not to buy.