[k-mcgrady]

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?

[drewcrawford]

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.

[k-mcgrady]

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.

Source: http://cydiahelp.com/heres-why-apples-iphone-ads-always-show...