Support

Is it really free? Any catch?

Yes: free, no in-app purchases, no account, no ads, no data collection. It is a showcase app from a broadcast systems house, built because we wanted a clock on our own screens that looks like the ones we install.

Is there a Windows version?

No, and there are no plans for one. G&L StudioClock runs on Mac, iPhone, iPad and Apple TV from one App Store listing.

Is there an iPhone or iPad version?

Yes. The same App Store listing includes iPhone and iPad (iOS and iPadOS 17 or later). The clock fills the window in any orientation, in Split View and with Stage Manager; tap the clock to show the gear for Settings (face, seconds ring, 24-hour time, date, label, keep screen awake, time server, timer, iCloud). “Keep screen awake” is on by default and can be turned off to save battery. A Studio Clock widget for the Home Screen, the Lock Screen and StandBy is included; see the widget question for what it shows.

Is there an Apple TV version?

Yes. The same App Store listing includes Apple TV (tvOS 17 or later, Apple TV HD and 4K). The clock fills the screen and the display never sleeps. Press the remote's touch surface or Play/Pause to open Settings (face, seconds ring, 24-hour time, date, label, time server, timer); press Menu to close them. While a timer is prepared or running, Play/Pause starts, pauses and resumes it instead; the hint at the bottom of the screen says which it will do. Apple TV has no browser, so the privacy policy is shown in Settings as an address to type.

Does it run on macOS 13 or earlier?

No; macOS 14 Sonoma is the minimum because of the SwiftUI APIs the app uses. Apple silicon and Intel Macs are both supported.

Which seconds-ring modes are there?

Four, under Settings → Face → Seconds ring: fill over the minute (the classic), a single running dot, three trailing dots (the current second and the two before it, the mode Wharton's clocks call the three trailing markers) and empty over the minute. The analog face has a stepping or a sweeping second hand instead; the stepping hand settles after each step, like a mechanical station clock.

Can I change the colour or the brightness, dim the clock at night or protect an OLED display?

Colour. Settings → Face → Colour offers red (the default), green, amber and white, the four colours the hardware is sold in. The colour applies to the LED face's dots, markers, digits and text. The analog face keeps its white markings and hands and takes the colour on the second hand and the hub only. The sync symbol in the corner keeps its own colours (amber, green, red), because there it means a state, not a style.

Brightness and night dimming. Settings → Brightness sets the level between 20 % and 100 %. It dims the clock face itself, not the display and not the system brightness, so everything else on the screen stays as it is. “Dim at night” adds a schedule with its own level, by default 22:00 to 06:00 at 40 %; the window may cross midnight. The times are local to the device; there is no ambient-light sensor an App Store app may read, so the schedule is by clock time, not by room light.

Blinking colons. When a time server is configured and the clock is not synchronized, while it is acquiring or when the server is unreachable, the colons between the digits blink once a second and go solid as soon as it is synchronized; that is the convention on Wharton and Masterclock hardware. Without a time server the colons are always solid.

OLED protection. On iPhone, iPad and Apple TV, Settings → Brightness → “Protect OLED displays” shifts the face by up to four points once a minute, starting ten minutes after it appears, so a face that stands still for weeks does not burn into an OLED panel. It is off by default because the movement is noticeable if you look for it. The Mac does not offer it.

Where do the label and the date appear, and can I change the date format?

The label (for example “STUDIO 1”) appears above the time and the date below it, on both the LED and the analog face; the live preview at the top of Settings shows the result while you type.

Date format: Settings → Display → “Show date”, then “Date format”: Automatic follows the device language (09/20/2026 in English, 20.09.2026 in German), or pick a fixed format: 2026-09-20, 20.09.2026 or 09/20/2026. “Show weekday” adds the abbreviated weekday in the device language. The LED digits can be switched from seven-segment to a real typeface under Face → Digits.

“Show calendar week” appends the ISO 8601 week to the date line, written “KW 38” in German and “W38” in the other languages. Independently of the date, “Second time zone” shows a line of its own below it: Off, UTC, a short list of broadcast-relevant zones (Berlin, London, New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Sydney) or this device's own zone, labelled with the city in capitals, for example “NEW YORK 08:08”, and following the 24-hour setting like the main time.

Can I hide the title bar and run the clock as a bare face on the Mac?

Yes: Settings (Command-Comma) → Window → “Hide window frame”. The clock then runs as a bare face without title bar and without the three window buttons, for a clock parked in a corner of the desktop or on a second display where the frame only distracts. Drag the face itself to move the window; resize at its edges as before. “Keep window on top” works with it.

The frame comes back three ways: the same switch in Settings, Shift-Command-H (also in the Window menu as “Show Window Frame”), and full screen (Control-Command-F; the green button is hidden with the frame). Settings stays reachable with Command-Comma and the app quits with Command-Q as usual. The setting belongs to the Mac it is made on and does not follow your iCloud account, like “Keep window on top”. Only the Mac has it: iPhone, iPad and Apple TV have no window frame.

The screen goes to sleep

On the Mac only fullscreen keeps the display awake: enter fullscreen (Control-Command-F), or adjust the Mac's energy settings. On iPhone and iPad “Keep screen awake” in Settings is on by default, which is the real battery cost of an all-day display. On Apple TV the display never sleeps while the clock is showing.

Can I show it on a second monitor or TV?

Mac: move the window to that display and press Control-Command-F; macOS treats each display as its own fullscreen space. One clock face cannot span several displays as one image. iPad and iPhone: a display connected by cable or AirPlay shows the face alone, full screen, while the device keeps its controls; with Stage Manager on, the external display is an extended desktop instead and the normal window is used there. Or put an Apple TV on the wall and run the app there.

How do I synchronize with our studio NTP server?

Settings → Time source → turn on “Synchronize with a time server”. The field is prefilled with time.apple.com; the Preset picker also offers the NTP Pool for your region and PTB Braunschweig. For the studio's own server, enter its host name or IP address (for example your Meinberg, Gorgy or PTP-to-NTP gateway); the app cannot discover it by itself.

The clock queries the server over UDP port 123 and corrects the displayed time: about once a minute for your own or a single public server, every 17 minutes (1,024 s) for the NTP Pool, whose volunteer operators ask applications for a few queries an hour. A server on your own network makes iOS, iPadOS and macOS 15 ask once for local network access; allow it (see the question on the local network below). A small symbol in the lower right corner of the face shows the state: amber antenna while acquiring, green check mark when synchronized, red warning triangle when the server is unreachable (the last good correction stays applied); the LED colons blink until the time is in sync. PTP itself is not supported inside the App Sandbox; use your time server's NTP output. Without a time server the clock shows the device's system time, which the system keeps in sync.

How accurate is the synchronized time, and what happens when the server is unreachable?

G&L StudioClock is an advisory wall clock. With a time server configured it corrects the device's clock by the offset measured in the latest SNTP exchange (RFC 4330); the result is as good as the network path between you and the server (the measured offset is read out by VoiceOver on the corner symbol), and we publish no precision figure because we have not measured one against a reference yet (a measurement against a reference is planned for a later version). It is not a PTP, timecode or frame-accurate reference and should not be used as one. The reply is checked for plausibility but not authenticated, so the server you enter is the one you trust.

When the server does not answer, the corner symbol turns into a red warning triangle. The face keeps showing the last synchronized time if there was one, or the device's system time if the server never answered; VoiceOver says which. The app retries after 16 seconds, then doubles the wait up to five minutes, and the green check mark appears for a few seconds when synchronization is back. There is no separate “stale” warning yet if the server stays away for hours; that is planned for a later version. Widgets always show the device's system time.

Why does the app ask for access to the local network?

Because you entered a time server that lives on your own network (for example the studio's Meinberg or a PTP-to-NTP gateway). iOS, iPadOS and macOS 15 or later ask once before an app may send anything to a local address; the app's only local traffic is the NTP query on UDP port 123 to that server. Allow it and the corner symbol goes from the amber antenna to the green check mark. The very first query can fail while the question is still on screen; the app retries by itself after 16 seconds. If you declined, the symbol stays a red triangle until you allow the app under Settings → Privacy & Security → Local Network (iOS) or System Settings → Privacy & Security → Local Network (macOS). Apple TV does not ask: tvOS has no Local Network permission (Apple's documentation, TN3179). Public servers such as time.apple.com never trigger the question.

The time is off by seconds or minutes

Without a time server the app shows the device's system time and has no clock of its own: check the system's Date & Time settings (automatic time, correct time zone). With a time server configured, look at the symbol in the corner: a red triangle means the server did not answer and the face shows the last synchronized time or the system time; VoiceOver says which. Widgets always show the device's system time.

How does the show timer work: modes, overrun, pause, presets, Live Activity?

Where it is. On the Mac: Settings (Command-Comma) → Timer, and a Timer menu in the menu bar (Command-T starts, pauses and resumes; Option-Command-T resets; Shift-Command-T converts a time-of-day timer to a duration; “Remove timer” has no shortcut on purpose). On iPhone and iPad: the timer button next to the gear on the clock screen (Command-E with a keyboard; Command-T, Option-Command-T and Shift-Command-T work as on the Mac). On Apple TV: Settings → Timer, and Play/Pause on the remote starts a prepared timer and pauses or resumes a running one (when it can do neither, Play/Pause opens Settings; the hint at the bottom of the screen says which it will do).

The three kinds. Countdown: duration counts down from a duration you set (hours, minutes, seconds; on the Mac one field taking 3, 3:00 or 1:30:00, where a bare number is minutes). Countdown: time of day counts down to a time of day, for example 20:30 for the ad break; the line under the time picker says where it resolves to (“Target: today 20:30”, “Target: tomorrow, 23 Sep, 09:15”) before you start. Count up counts elapsed time from zero with no mark to reach. Under the kind a sentence says what will happen, in the face's own word: “Counts down from 3 minutes. After zero: OVERRUN.” A name (“NEWS”) is optional and appears next to the value on the face and, on iPhone, on the Lock Screen while the timer runs.

Prepare, then Start. Choosing a preset or setting a value prepares the timer: the face shows it with the word READY and the state line reads “Ready · 03:00”. Nothing counts until you press Start (or Command-T, or Play/Pause on Apple TV). While a timer is running or paused, the presets and fields edit the next timer, the form says “Next timer”, and nothing you do there changes the timer on the face. To start a different timer while one runs, choose its preset or values and press Start next timer; the app asks once (“Replace the running timer (00:55 remaining) with a countdown from 15 minutes?”) and only then replaces the running one. On the Mac the same is “Start next timer…” in the Timer menu. A running timer is renamed only through “Rename current timer”.

Presets. The Durations row offers 1:00, 2:00, 3:00, 5:00, 10:00, 15:00 and 30:00; the Times of day row the next quarter hour, the next half hour and the top of the hour, each showing the time it will count to right now. A time-of-day preset always picks the next one: choosing “top of the hour” exactly on the hour gives the following hour, not zero. A time of day that has already passed today resolves to tomorrow, and the form says so. A prepared time-of-day timer that is not started before its time reads “Target 20:30 has passed”; pick again or remove it, it never moves to the next day by itself.

Overrun. A countdown does not stop at zero and does not stop itself at all. At zero the face shows 00:00 for the moment less than a full second has passed, then +00:01, +00:02 and so on, with the word OVERRUN next to the value. The last seconds before zero show ENDING, a prepared timer READY, a held timer PAUSED. That is on purpose: on live radio and television the question is not “did it stop” but “by how much are we over”, and colour alone is never the only cue, because a red face cannot signal red by turning red. Only you stop a timer: Reset returns it to READY with the value it was started with, Remove timer takes it off the face.

Pause. A countdown from a duration and a count-up can be paused and resumed. A countdown to a time cannot: 20:30 keeps arriving whatever the timer does, and a pause could only lie about the time left. Use “Convert to duration” instead: it turns the time currently on screen into a duration timer, which can then be paused. The value on screen does not jump when you do it.

Which clock the timer uses. A duration and a count-up are measured against the device's monotonic clock, so a time-server correction or a hand-set clock cannot make a running segment longer or shorter; they also keep counting while the device sleeps. A countdown to a time is measured against the displayed, time-server-corrected clock, so a correction moves the value by exactly the correction, which is the point, because the time of day has not moved. Changing the device's time zone does not move a time-of-day timer that is already running.

“Stop” in operator language. There is no Stop button on purpose: Pause halts the count where it is (Resume continues), Reset returns the timer to its prepared value without starting it, Remove timer clears it from the face. A preset never starts anything, and while a timer is running or paused, Start is disabled; a second press cannot throw the run away by accident, and neither can a preset. Only the confirmed “Start next timer” replaces a running timer.

After a restart. The timer survives quitting the app. A countdown to a time is restored exactly, because its target is an instant. A duration or count-up timer was measured against the previous run's clock, so its restored value can be off by any clock correction that happened in between; the state line says “restored” until you reset or start a new run. Check it against the studio clock before trusting it.

Live Activity (iPhone and iPad). When a timer starts, it also appears on the Lock Screen of the iPhone or iPad and, on iPhones that have it, in the Dynamic Island, and counts down there by itself. It is an advisory display, not the timer: the app updates it only when the timer changes (start, pause, resume, convert, the crossing into overrun) and not at all while the app is suspended, so at zero the Lock Screen value stops at 0:00 and shows the overrun value only once the app is in the foreground again. Apple ends a Live Activity after eight hours at the latest (Apple's documented limit), or you dismiss it. The clock face in the app is the reference. If it does not appear at all, Live Activities may be switched off for the app in the device's Settings, or an earlier one may still be showing.

Sound. The app plays no sound and has no alarm. At amber, at red and at zero, iPhone taps a haptic once, and VoiceOver users hear one announcement per band, never one per second. VoiceOver speech follows the device's accessibility settings and is audible on the device's audio output; in a studio, keep the device off the programme feed.

Thresholds. The amber and red bands are shown under the summary (“Warning at 1 minute · ENDING at 15 seconds”) and can be changed by importing a face file that carries timer values. That affects timers prepared afterwards; a timer already running keeps the bands it started with.

How does settings sync over iCloud work, and why has my other device not followed yet?

Settings → iCloud → “Sync settings with iCloud” (on by default) carries the face, seconds ring, second hand, 24-hour time, date and date format, weekday, digit style, sync symbol, the time server (on/off and host), the colour, the calendar week, the second time zone and the timer's colour bands to your other devices signed in with the same iCloud account. The label (“STUDIO 1”), “Keep window on top”, “Hide window frame”, “Keep screen awake”, brightness, the night schedule, the OLED shift, the running timer and the switch itself stay on each device. Sync stores the values in the private CloudKit database of your own iCloud account, one encrypted record per setting; nothing goes to G&L, and G&L could not read the values if it wanted to.

It is eventual, not instant, and promises no deadline: iCloud tells a running app about a change on another device with a silent push, and the app then fetches it, typically within a minute. The app also checks iCloud whenever it comes to the front and every five minutes while it runs. A device whose app was closed or asleep picks the change up when the app becomes active again, so opening the app is the first thing to try. If nothing ever arrives, check on both devices that the same Apple account is signed in to iCloud; the Settings footer says “Settings don't sync while nobody is signed in to iCloud on this device, or iCloud is restricted” when that is the problem. iCloud Drive does not matter to it. The most recent change wins when two devices change the same setting at once.

Switching sync off stops both sending and receiving on that device. It does not delete the values already stored in your iCloud; they stay until another device overwrites them. Switching it on again starts over: where your iCloud has a value, that value wins on this device; what iCloud does not have yet, this device fills in from its own settings. You can delete the app's data in the iCloud storage settings of your device (Apple's mechanism; the app itself deletes nothing on the server).

Is there a widget, and why does it not show seconds?

Yes, on iPhone and iPad: the Studio Clock widget for the Home Screen and the Lock Screen (circular), and on iPhone also in StandBy (StandBy is an iPhone feature). On the Mac the same widget sits on the desktop and in Notification Center. Add it by touching and holding the Home Screen, tapping Edit, then Add Widget, and search for G&L StudioClock. Long-press the widget to choose the LED ring or the analog face, 24-hour time and a label. In StandBy (set the iPhone down on its side while charging) the studio clock shows on the display.

The widget shows hours and minutes only, and the ring counts the minutes of the hour instead of seconds. That is an iOS rule, not a choice we made: widgets are drawn by the system on its own schedule, at most about once a minute, and cannot animate seconds. Anything that showed seconds would stand still and be wrong within moments. For a running seconds ring, open the app itself. The widget always shows the device's system time; the time-server setting in the app does not apply to it.

Does Siri understand the German phrase for the clock?

The Siri phrases exist in English only: “Open G&L StudioClock”, “Show the studio clock in G&L StudioClock”, “Show the LED ring in G&L StudioClock” and “Show the Analog clock in G&L StudioClock” work with Siri set to English. With Siri in German or another language, use the Shortcuts app instead: the actions “Open Studio Clock” and “Show Clock Face” are listed there in your language, and the Shortcuts app lets you give a shortcut you build from them a name of your own and run it through Siri by that name, as with any shortcut (a feature of Shortcuts, which we have not tested with German Siri ourselves). Phrases in German and the other interface languages are planned for a later version.

What data does the app collect, and where is the privacy policy?

None. There is no analytics, no account, no advertising, no in-app purchase and no G&L server; the App Store privacy label is “Data Not Collected”. Two things do leave the device, both under your control: the time query to the server you chose (that server sees your device's address, like any server you contact), and, while “Sync settings with iCloud” is on, your clock settings in your own iCloud account, which Apple stores under Apple's privacy policy and G&L cannot read. Switching sync off stops that; it does not delete what is already in your iCloud. The privacy policy is linked at the bottom of Settings on Mac, iPhone and iPad; Apple TV has no browser, so there the address is shown as text.

Can we deploy it to many Macs or devices (broadcaster IT)?

Yes, through the App Store with Apple Business Manager and your device management; a notarized direct download for managed Macs is planned. For volume needs or a conversation about your studio's setup, write to apps@gl-systemhaus.de.