Why the iPhone Timer app displays a fake time

Post by cyral » Tue, Dec 29, 2020, 12:49 AM UTC

gfxgirl wrote: post #57

I'm I alone in thinking the new timer app UI sucks? The old app where it used a spinner to set an alerm time and where I had N alarms that I could edit was simple and easy to use. The new app where hour and minutes are separate text fields and where you can't edit an alarm you can only delete old ones and create new ones is utterly unintuitive to me and much slower and more error prone than the old one. Clicking in t…

Post by combatentropy » Tue, Dec 29, 2020, 1:15 AM UTC

function_seven wrote: post #33

combatentropy wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this highlights the difference between the two devices, stopwatches and timers. A stopwatch counts up. Therefore, it makes sense to use the floor (4.99 is still "4", not yet "5"). A timer counts down. Therefore, it makes sense to use the ceiling (3.01 is still "4", not yet "3"). In fact this was a turning point in the original article: "rounding down . . . makes a lot of sense when counting up. . . . But for a co…

Yup, that was my motivation for rewriting the parent statement. Abstracting away the type of counter and just saying, "show the number only when you crossed it" basically.

Post by magicalhippo » Tue, Dec 29, 2020, 1:27 AM UTC

_antix wrote: post #62

cafeoh wrote: post #49

I've never seen something so confusing. I've been (and quite frankly still am) seriously considering this is a big prank that's going over my head. The author even mentions that because time goes up and countdowns go down, rounding down is confusing. Wouldn't the logical conclusion be that you needed to round up? Wouldn't rounding up be the most logical option ANYWAY? If someone counts me down, I expect them to say "…

Original author here. I have thought about your and other peoples comments. It could well be just rounded to the nearest integer, making my +500ms assumption wrong. However, this would result in 59.51s being displayed as 0:60, though it should be 1:00. Rounding up has the same problem. I went through the same assumptions coding my own timer. Let's just round everything. But this resulted in 51.0s being displayed as 1…

Post by combatentropy » Tue, Dec 29, 2020, 1:39 AM UTC

_antix wrote: post #62

cafeoh wrote: post #49

I've never seen something so confusing. I've been (and quite frankly still am) seriously considering this is a big prank that's going over my head. The author even mentions that because time goes up and countdowns go down, rounding down is confusing. Wouldn't the logical conclusion be that you needed to round up? Wouldn't rounding up be the most logical option ANYWAY? If someone counts me down, I expect them to say "…

Original author here. I have thought about your and other peoples comments. It could well be just rounded to the nearest integer, making my +500ms assumption wrong. However, this would result in 59.51s being displayed as 0:60, though it should be 1:00. Rounding up has the same problem. I went through the same assumptions coding my own timer. Let's just round everything. But this resulted in 51.0s being displayed as 1…

    
        
        
        
        
        
    

    

    document.forms.f.addEventListener('submit', function (ev) {

        ev.preventDefault();

        let f = ev.target,
            s = Number(f.h.value * 60 * 60) +
                Number(f.m.value * 60) +
                Number(f.s.value);

        function show(f, s) {

            let h = Math.floor(s / 60 / 60);
            s -= (h * 60 * 60);

            let m = Math.floor(s / 60);
            s -= (m * 60);

            m = String(m).padStart(2, '0');
            s = String(s).padStart(2, '0');

            f.elements.r.value = [h, m, s].join(':');
        }

        show(f, s);

        if (f.timer) { clearInterval(f.timer); }
        f.timer = setInterval(function () {
            if (0 === s) { clearInterval(f.timer); return; }
            s -= 1;
            show(f, s);
        }, 1000);
    });

    

Post by monkpit » Tue, Dec 29, 2020, 2:31 AM UTC

kivlad wrote: post #19

This gives me a nostalgic reminder of when I used to watch Nickelodeon GUTS. Whenever a countdown timed challenge was about to end, I would hear the audience count down starting with "10" at maybe 10.7 seconds, "9" at 9.7 seconds, etc. Then after "1", there was a small period of awkward silence and murmurs from the audience before the siren blasted. It's a good example of how measurement of time in terms of human per…