Little-known reason Apple always sets time to 9:41 as time spotted on new iPhone 18 Pro
Last week saw Apple unveil the brand new iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max for the first time during its 'Surprise and shine' event, and once again the time was set to 9:41.
The annual phone event from the tech giant also announced other products set to hit the Apple Store soon including the company's first foldable phone, the iPhone Duo, and the new Apple Watch Series 12.
The latest model of iPhone comes with some serious upgrades including new capabilities with Siri AI, with the revamped digital assistant now being able to ‘take actions in your apps, including third-party apps’. Meanwhile, the battery life is purported to be the longest in iPhone history.
Introducing the new device, new Apple CEO John Ternus shared in his keynote address: “I love the idea that the things we make help people be more creative, more productive, and maybe even do things they didn't think possible before. I love that we lead with our values and we infuse them into everything that we do. We obsess over the details.
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Reason why the time is always 9:41 on Apple devices at launch
“We care enormously about design and simplicity. We want our products to be incredibly powerful, but we also want them to be simple and natural and intuitive. And look, at the end of the day, we just want to make things that have a meaningful impact in people's lives.”
However, there was one particular thing during the announcements that viewers couldn’t help but notice. The time on the phone displays while showing the latest iPhone model was set to 9:41 and eagle-eyed fans realized that this is always the time set on Apple products during launches.
But it begs the question - why? Well, it’s actually all down to the company’s founder, Steve Jobs.
Scott Forstall, who is the former senior vice president of iOS software at Apple and leader of the original iPhone and iPad software development team, explained it all, saying: “We design the 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.”
Still, Apple decided that it wanted to be early rather than late and so gave themselves a couple extra minutes by setting the device times to 9:42 when capturing the product shots.
But when Jobs was practicing his speech, he realized that the reveal of the iPhone would actually happen a minute earlier, at 9.41.
Ever the perfectionist, the image of the phone was changed accordingly to match the real time that fans would see the phone for the first time.
Forstall went on to add: “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.”
So, that's the mystery solved!