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Why the iPhone Timer app displays a fake time

lukashermann.dev

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Re: Why the iPhone Timer app displays a fake time

#21

Post by notatoad »

mey wrote: post #10

Round half up is the typical expectation for most people in rounding to the nearest whole value. It isn't displaying a "fake" time, it's rounding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rounding#Round_half_up Edit: Note, Round Half Up != Round half away from zero but that isn't important for this scenario :D

Round half up is a reasonable thing to do with many data types, but it's not something that's typically done with time. Any sensible time handling solution will truncate instead of rounding.

Which is not to call apple's timer nonsensical. I agree with the author that it's a nicer experience, but I think it's likely an intentional decision to make the display look better, not a consequence of naive rounding.

Re: Why the iPhone Timer app displays a fake time

#22

Post by shirakawasuna »

jrockway wrote: post #14

I think I find the ceiling method most intuitive. I have noticed that video games with cooldowns tend to agree with me; some ability has a 4 second cooldown, you press it, and the UI says "4", even though 3.999 seconds remain until the ability is back. (This means that you never see "0"; the counter reads "1" for the last second before the cooldown is available again.)

The ceiling method matches with the expectation of how much time is left when the major digit changes, which is the same as how we do countdowns verbally in English.

We say, "5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0", not "4, 3, 2, 1, 0, done".

Re: Why the iPhone Timer app displays a fake time

#23

Post by wildmanx »

Maybe the author should look up different modes of rounding. Round-to-nearest is what's the "intuitive" choice Apple made here. It's not "fake time". Srsly..

Besides, instead of truncating, it would even be sensible to do a round-up here, so that you get "5, 4, 3, 2, 1, done!" Non-mathematicians and non-programmers don't want to stare at 0 for a seconds. They likely don't want to stare at a 0 at all. That wouldn't "fake time" either.

It really gets to me that he writes such an article and his self-description is "I'm a Maker and Full Stack Developer who loves working with the Frontend, Vue.js and User Interface Design." Not a great ad for yourself..

Re: Why the iPhone Timer app displays a fake time

#24

Post by kristo »

wildmanx wrote: post #23

Maybe the author should look up different modes of rounding. Round-to-nearest is what's the "intuitive" choice Apple made here. It's not "fake time". Srsly.. Besides, instead of truncating, it would even be sensible to do a round-up here, so that you get "5, 4, 3, 2, 1, done!" Non-mathematicians and non-programmers don't want to stare at 0 for a seconds. They likely don't want to stare at a 0 at all. That wouldn't "f…

Yo. Stop being mean. This isn’t a competition. You’re not in high school anymore. You don’t need to put others down to boost yourself.

Re: Why the iPhone Timer app displays a fake time

#25

Post by dingaling »

notatoad wrote: post #21
mey wrote: post #10

Round half up is the typical expectation for most people in rounding to the nearest whole value. It isn't displaying a "fake" time, it's rounding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rounding#Round_half_up Edit: Note, Round Half Up != Round half away from zero but that isn't important for this scenario :D

Round half up is a reasonable thing to do with many data types, but it's not something that's typically done with time. Any sensible time handling solution will truncate instead of rounding. Which is not to call apple's timer nonsensical. I agree with the author that it's a nicer experience, but I think it's likely an intentional decision to make the display look better, not a consequence of naive rounding.

> Any sensible time handling solution will truncate instead of rounding.

That doesn't really work for a countdown timer though since the last second would then display as zero, which is nonsense for 'time remaining'. You have to round up, always.

The Android 9 countdown works intuitively, it takes a second to decrement from 5 to 4 and sounds the alarm exactly at 0. You can't pause it at zero...

> Which is not to call apple's timer nonsensical.

It pretty much is, since the last 'second' takes more than a second to elapse.

Re: Why the iPhone Timer app displays a fake time

#27

Post by function_seven »

dingaling wrote: post #25
notatoad wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Round half up is a reasonable thing to do with many data types, but it's not something that's typically done with time. Any sensible time handling solution will truncate instead of rounding. Which is not to call apple's timer nonsensical. I agree with the author that it's a nicer experience, but I think it's likely an intentional decision to make the display look better, not a consequence of naive rounding.

> Any sensible time handling solution will truncate instead of rounding. That doesn't really work for a countdown timer though since the last second would then display as zero, which is nonsense for 'time remaining'. You have to round up, always. The Android 9 countdown works intuitively, it takes a second to decrement from 5 to 4 and sounds the alarm exactly at 0. You can't pause it at zero... > Which is not to call…

I'll rewrite parent's statement to apply to timers and stopwatches:

> Any sensible time handling solution will round off toward the starting value.

So a stopwatch won't display "1" until a full second has elapsed, and will look like this for five seconds: "0...1...2...3...4...5!"

A timer won't display "4" until a full second has elapsed, and will look like this: "5...4...3...2...1...0!"

In the stopwatch case, the display shows "0" for 0.999 s; in the timer case it'll show "1" for 0.999 s.

Re: Why the iPhone Timer app displays a fake time

#28

Post by bavell »

kristo wrote: post #24
wildmanx wrote: post #23

Maybe the author should look up different modes of rounding. Round-to-nearest is what's the "intuitive" choice Apple made here. It's not "fake time". Srsly.. Besides, instead of truncating, it would even be sensible to do a round-up here, so that you get "5, 4, 3, 2, 1, done!" Non-mathematicians and non-programmers don't want to stare at 0 for a seconds. They likely don't want to stare at a 0 at all. That wouldn't "f…

Yo. Stop being mean. This isn’t a competition. You’re not in high school anymore. You don’t need to put others down to boost yourself.

Mature adults should be able to take criticism without getting butt-hurt about it. The real world can be mean and nasty and sometimes you need a wake-up call that you're being silly or screwing up.

Re: Why the iPhone Timer app displays a fake time

#30

Post by reaperducer »

kristo wrote: post #24
wildmanx wrote: post #23

Maybe the author should look up different modes of rounding. Round-to-nearest is what's the "intuitive" choice Apple made here. It's not "fake time". Srsly.. Besides, instead of truncating, it would even be sensible to do a round-up here, so that you get "5, 4, 3, 2, 1, done!" Non-mathematicians and non-programmers don't want to stare at 0 for a seconds. They likely don't want to stare at a 0 at all. That wouldn't "f…

Yo. Stop being mean. This isn’t a competition. You’re not in high school anymore. You don’t need to put others down to boost yourself.

You don’t need to put others down to boost yourself.

Isn't that exactly what you did right here?

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