Why the iPhone shows 9:42 in Apple Ads - and the iPad 9:41

Ever wondered why time stands still at 9:42 AM on every picture of every iPhone in Apple ads?

This was one secret one would expect never to be revealed, but indeed it has:

According to Scott Forstall, senior vice president of iPhone software, the answer is simple:

We design the (product launch) 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.

He also explains why it time was slightly tweaked on the iPad.

Yeah! And for the iPhone, we made it 42 minutes. It turned out we were pretty accurate with that estimate, so for the iPad, we made it 41 minutes.

There you have it: the reason for the mysterious magic time secret in the iPhone and the iPad.