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What I wanted was an analog clock and a stopwatch
What I wanted was an analog clock and a stopwatch
Apparently, more and more kids these days can’t read an analog clock. And maybe quite a few adults can’t either. Come to think of it, just about everything has gone digital, so perhaps analog clocks really are becoming a rare sight. Even on the App Store, digital clocks seem to vastly outnumber analog ones.
But I’m definitely an analog-clock person. If I see “10:20,” I know it’s 10:20. Of course I do. But with an analog clock, I can also see at a glance that there are still about two-thirds of an hour until 11:00. It gives me a sense of how much time is left, not just what time it is.
Simple and easy to use. That’s best.
Simple and easy to use. That’s best.
Anyway, I looked around the App Store, but nothing really felt quite right. So I thought, “Well, I guess I’ll just make one myself.” And that’s how this app came to be. I had just released my Tokaido 53 Stations Pedometer app, so I may have been feeling a little too confident at the time.
The app itself was extremely simple. Just two modes: Clock and Stopwatch. In Clock mode, the digital display on the clock face can show the stopwatch, the time, or the date.
The controls are simple too. One click starts the stopwatch. Another click stops it. One more click starts it again…. And a triple-click resets it. That’s it. Just clicking.
I originally made the stopwatch for timing things like talks while preparing them, so there’s no lap-time function. I don’t need lap times when I’m checking how long a script takes to deliver. So, I finished the app and thought, “Well, since I made it, I might as well put it on the App Store.” I released it for ¥300. And then something slightly troubling happened.
A WILD CUSTOMER APPEARED!
A WILD CUSTOMER APPEARED!
And then, believe it or not, someone actually bought it. Normally, this is probably where I should have shouted, “Yay!” But I made this app mainly because I wanted it myself, so I knew perfectly well that it wasn’t exactly packed with amazing features. I felt a little bad about that, so I hurriedly decided to make an update.
But there wasn’t really anything more I could do with the stopwatch. So… maybe add a few more clock-face designs, and… what else?
And that was when things started going off the rails.
The first idea was to turn the Dock icon into a clock. A desktop analog clock is useful, but sometimes it does get in the way. So I thought: what if I could close the clock window and still see the time in the Dock? That led to a switch that turns the Dock icon into a digital clock. If the time is already visible in the Dock, you could even switch the clock in the upper-right corner of the menu bar to analog and save a little menu-bar space.
That made the app quite a bit more useful.
But somehow, it still felt like something was missing. And then I thought of the “Wadokei” mode.
Have you ever heard of a wadokei?
It’s a traditional Japanese clock based on a system of unequal temporal hours. It turns out to be a surprisingly deep subject. The more I researched it, the deeper I fell into the rabbit hole. Strictly speaking, it’s only really practical around the latitudes of Japan. But somehow I ended up building a wadokei that works anywhere in the world. Even in places with the midnight sun! (Click here if you’d like to know more about wadokei.)
The unfortunate thing is that the more seriously I pursued the wadokei, the further the app wandered away from anything remotely practical. At this point, the app had clearly lost its way. So naturally, I finished things off by adding an analog clock option to the Dock clock too.
Well…
With this many features, I guess it’s okay to call it shareware now, right? And although the wadokei may not be particularly practical, it is the real deal.
More New Designs!
New designs have been added for both the clock and the Dock. They’re pretty nice, if I do say so myself.
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