Apple's Kevin Lynch Explains Method Behind Apple Watch's Precise Timekeeping

[CarlJ]

so I don't understand what the hoopla is about. What's so amazing about implementing a portable device sync'ng off atomic ntp servers? What breakthroughs does it bring to the table (that Bathys or Hoptroff didn't already bring)?

First off, you can get an Apple Watch with no fanfare for $349, that is that accurate. The others you mention, I'm guessing would set you back at least ten times that much if not considerably more (and you'd have to find somewhere to get them, deciding where on the reputability vs. cost scale you feel comfortable). Second, it's what Apple is really good at: taking advanced tech and making it simple enough to use that non-techies will want to use it. Apple didn't invent smart phones, or touch screens, but they made them work together in a consumer product in a way that was extremely compelling.

(Apple also did consumers a huge service by breaking the carrier's death grip on the cellphone experience - before Apple, the phone was plastered with the carrier name and got updated ... maybe once, if they found a problem too big to ignore. You weren't the customer, Verizon/AT&T/etc was, and you got what they felt like "giving" you - remember $3 midi ringtones? With Apple, now, I'm the customer for the phone and Apple has to make _me_ happy. Better all around, unless you're a carrier CEO.)

 

[M2M]

Would be cool of Apple wouldn't notoriously mess up calendars and reminders especially in New Years and in different time zones. Then this level of accuracy would actually mean something. Until then just..... Meh

 

[groovyd]

Well, it's nice not worrying about changing the battery (charges via solar) or setting the time on it (RF atomic clock signal)... But Apple makes it sound like they've re-invented something, when 10 years ago technology existed (and probably longer than that) to keep a consumer wristwatch highly accurate.

i don't get that feeling from what i have heard, just that they are explaining that it is a very accurate time keeper and why. i would say most watches (even digital) are not doing this and probably not to a 50ms level of precision. reading a gps chip directly doesn't really give you this level of precision either even though it contains a much higher precision internally because the communication protocol to the chip is normally over uart or i2c and the mechanism it uses to buffer and communicate messages to the cpu just doesn't have this precision normally. same is true with cell modems.

the other issue with syncing from a gps or cell modem is it takes a ton of power to fire up those components and you would have to do this quite often to correct for drift. the TCXO is used to help mitigate that and is an expensive otherwise unnecessary component for a watch which is why they mention it. that this watch includes one is just like saying they spent a bit more on the design and device because they care about accuracy.

 

[sziehr]

The watch is accurate awesome. The watch displays notification yep check. The watch kinda tracks my steps cool. The watch at 180 which is what i paid for it = awesome. The watch at 400 equal over priced for what it can do. Its a digital watch. All the haters can hate on it all they like but at the end of the day it is a digital connected watch. I had one of the original connected iron man wrist watches from timemex those where pretty darn ahead of there time. Now i have a apple watch in place of my mechanical one. Its a watch i will wear it and when i am done with it sell it or draw it. The people so up in arms is comical to watch

 

[ProjectManager101]

Am I the only one that doesn't care about time accuracy that much? My non smart watch is about 1 minute out and I dont see why I need to change it - yes it be on time but 1 minute either side isn't going to make a difference - you dont tell people the time is exactly 3.03pm but you say 3.05 or 3.00 or just past...

No, if someone come to me to tell me "how accurate his watch is".... that is a primary school kids conversation. Only a loser nerd virgin who lies to showoff would come up with such comments. Lame. I mean, the Apple Watch is a failure, period.

 

[maxsix]

Wow, Apple Execs are working hard patting themselves on the back. Gushing with self congratulations, holding up their almighty watch as though it's so far superior to anything else to date, they themselves are overwhelmed in utter amazement. This marketing spin is truly the center of their recent efforts. Perhaps it's helping Watch Sales.

 

[ChrisA]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it is incorrect to say that Apple has 15 NTP servers. Those are military NTP servers and Apple is merely reading the time on GPS signals that are originated by the military NTP servers. Unless Apple is now in charge of the military's GPS system and satellites and controls what is being transmitted.

No, an NTP server is just a computer that is running NTP (or actually ntpd.) Anyone can set one up. They can get their time reference from either GPS, other NTP servers (or other less common methods.) They are cheap to set up and actually about 1000 times more accurate than said in the article. Mine cost me well under $100 and runs at the micro-second (not milli-second) level.

Why would I have a GPS synced clock? I needed a very accurate frequency reference and getting time is a by-product.

 

[ChrisA]

Wow, Apple Execs are working hard patting themselves on the back. Gushing with self congratulations, holding up their almighty watch as though it's so far superior to anything else to date, they themselves are overwhelmed in utter amazement. This marketing spin is truly the center of their recent efforts. Perhaps it's helping Watch Sales.

I have to agree. My Verison FIOS router runs NTP and it's internal clock is about one thousand times more accurate (literally 1000x) My router is nothing special. 50 milliseconds is actually quite poor. Only about as good as an old Windows PC. It is not hard to keep an NTP based clock to about 2 milliseconds. The watch is better then most people need but way behind the accuracy of many other common devices. But good for a wrist watch.

 

[59psi]

Guess no one has heard about PTP?

Too bad Apple is using the less accurate NTP, who knows how much better it could have been?!

http://blog.meinbergglobal.com/2013/11/22/ntp-vs-ptp-network-timing-smackdown/

 

[hiddenmarkov]

Second, it's what Apple is really good at: taking advanced tech and making it simple enough to use that non-techies will want to use it.

NTP is not high tech...nor is it rarely used and only by the tech geeks out there. Its been used for years by even most userish of users.

When you setup a new OS, and its ask where are you at (now the slick ones go are you here even after they see your IP address and go must be in Japan since the IP falls in its range)...it does this in background during install. reaches your best local NTP source and haves at it. This is what an ipad does when you set it up 1st time. ISP pushes out NTP the ipad will pick up.


You can go in later if you don't like the source used if so motivated too. Not many do...its not due to technical complexity. No need really. We like naval since the gold standard and looks good for audits and to say we did the best we could. But this is because we are a windows shop and Kerberos is time sensitive.


Case of apple watch its not even the watch doing it. Its the cell phone pulling the NTP info and transmitting to watch.

They make it sound like this is laborious. Our main NTP server is a cisco router that pulls from naval. SOme simple cisco IOS commands and done. Naval does all the work really.

 

[applefan69]

*: (Among other things, when NTP servers/clients discover that their notion of the time is slightly off, they don't "reset" to the right time, like you would a clock, instead they temporarily very slightly adjust the length of a second, so that they slowly catch up, or slow down, the amount needed; this sounds like a minor esoteric detail, but turns out to be very important to make sure that the time they hand out is always monotonic and increasing - time never replays a second or skips a second - this is really important with databases and log files and such, to keep things consistent. They also have a lot of code to ensure a pool of connected machines agree on the time, are able to ignore a member of the pool that somehow gets wildly out of sync, etc. Very good error handling. Interesting stuff. I've worked in the past on teams running network services, like nameservers, webservers, and NTP servers.)

Thanks for your entire post here. Question regarding your note, how does the temporary adjustment of a second effect processing speeds/benchmarks? Am I right to think this would literally confuse the speed a computer is processing things, since a lot can be done within even the slightest fraction of a second from a computers perspective.

Sorry if already asked, haven't read the whole thread yet.

 

[Soccertess]

Unbelievably magical.

AWESOME!! sorry mods, I probably should have included this on my other reply but it's so awesome I have to give homage to it! I bow to you sir

Like I said, bad hire. Doesn't matter who tried to hire him. Steve made some mistakes.

yea, but Steve also knew when to yell at people and fire them. He needs some good old fashion Steve Jobs ass kicking. Timmy just doesn't have it in him.

 

[Tsuius]

...and this is why I love Apple

 

[Bubba Satori]

...and this is why I love Apple

For making accurate watches?

SONNET V

Those hours, that with gentle work did frame
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,
Will play the tyrants to the very same
And that unfair which fairly doth excel:
For never-resting time leads summer on
To hideous winter and confounds him there...

 

[macsmurf]

My $25 Raspberry Pi is currently less than 5 milliseconds off relative to the Apple NTP servers. That is an order of magnitude better than the Apple Watch tolerance. I use it as a media center so I haven't installed anything special.

I guess Apple executives are easily impressed. That explains a lot.

 

[MH01]

I suppose "whole-life of Rolex watches" were the key words to look for in that sentence

You don't understand what a quartz watch is ? I replied to the poster who said rolexes "AND" imprecise digital ....

Rolexes are not Quartz .....

 

[Piggie]

How accurate is an Apple watch good for?
2 days mac, then the battery is dead.
Hmmmmm Interesting

I really wish Apple would focus more on products and not be so desperate to try and prove how amazing something that's not amazing and no one really cares about is.

Like the 5400rpm drives in the high end desktops and stupidly overpriced SSD's and one port on a laptop.
These are all the bad things of Apple
The sad thing is, there is really so little they have to do to make them the most respected company by everyone.

 

[NickUK69]

It's still ugly as hell and nobody wants it.

Not the only ugly looking thing...

 

[beanbaguk]

Apple's Kevin Lynch Explains Method Behind Apple Watch's Precise Timekeeping

hahahahahahahahaha it's a digital watch hahahahahahahaha

marketing at its best.

It's what Apple do better than anyone else, and it's why mindless fools accept the fact that when a device slows down due to an iOS update, they believe they need to upgrade and don't question why Apple are deliberately slowing down their device.

iPhone has GPS chipset in it. Can't it just use the GPS to update its time? Using time from the GPS would give you precise time in hundreds of nano seconds scale.

Well, exactly, but then Apple wouldn't be able to track your phone and watch

I thought I should add computers, phones and all smart watches are incredibly accurate but it's all boring stuff.

Now while many purists may scoff at the fact that this is a TAG Heuer, the fact that it keeps accuracy to 1/2000th of a second is a true marvel in a mechanical wrist watch.

Apple Watch is just another boring piece of silicon. This is a work of art....

 

[sofila]

You don't understand what a quartz watch is ? I replied to the poster who said rolexes "AND" imprecise digital ....

Rolexes are not Quartz .....

I really wish my English was better, sorry. I've had a quartz watch in my younger days and it still is in a drawer beside my bed. I was referring to the poster as showing off a whole life of (pricey) watches all of a sudden becoming crap in front of the Apple Watch. I mean, once you find your 2nd Rolex runs too fast, why go on buying them?

 

[cdm283813]

I find it strange that a culture so obsessed with tracking the accurate time actually wastes so much of it.

Very true. I just wasted 20 seconds posting this response. Well at least am sitting on the toilet multi-tasking. Damn, this really took 90 seconds to post.

 

[Arndroid]

Am I the only one that doesn't care about time accuracy that much? My non smart watch is about 1 minute out and I dont see why I need to change it - yes it be on time but 1 minute either side isn't going to make a difference - you dont tell people the time is exactly 3.03pm but you say 3.05 or 3.00 or just past...

Given the access to so many precise time devices in our proximity it seems to be putting you at a disadvantage to rely on one that is wrong.

While in the past it mightbhsvevbeen acceptable since access to,precise time was not common that is no longer the case. What is even the point of looking at a watch that is giving the wrong time. It's just a bracelet.

 

[navaira]

This truly is Macrumors at its best: a SCANDALOUS and INCREDIBLE headline "A Watch Measures Time Correctly" generates six pages of comments.

Coming up next: "An iPhone Allows Making Phone Calls" shocker.

Happy new year y'all, don't be 50 milliseconds late!

 

[MH01]

I really wish my English was better, sorry. I've had a quartz watch in my younger days and it still is in a drawer beside my bed. I was referring to the poster as showing off a whole life of (pricey) watches all of a sudden becoming crap in front of the Apple Watch. I mean, once you find your 2nd Rolex runs too fast, why go on buying them?

Okay , fair enough. I see your point.

Personally I prefer mechanical watches that may run fast or slow , my Apple maybe be accurate , though needs to be within a power source every 2 days. My mechanical watch has no need to be exact, I have a smart phone for that.

To be honest, can't think of a practical application of such accuracy, maybe the new year countdown

 

[maflynn]

This would be really cool, if we could actually see the precision, i.e., seconds hand on the watch. Kind of ludicrous that none of the watch faces includes seconds.