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Comment by EliRivers | Hacker News Reader

I enjoy the perfect 60 FPS smoothness of Apple Watch’s second hand — a smoothness no mechanical watch could ever match.

How can the the smoothness of an actual, physical piece of metal smoothly rotating in a circle at a constant angular velocity be "out-smoothed" by a 60 FPS simulacrum?

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Lots of mechanical clocks have hands and seconds which ticks one unit at a time, and doesn't move in a smooth movement. But that's obviously done intentionally through the mechanics and requires extra effort to "implement", so it's not a sign of a "low" quality watch either.

Not sure what Gruber is hinting at here honestly.

I have one here in a clocks n' (stop) watches box that moves the second hand at a significantly higher rate than 60 per second, but I must admit I didn't know that was something special.

Mechanical watches don't move continuously because movements of the hands are controlled by gears with a finite number of teeth. As for the "simulacrum" comment, don't forget that watches are just a mechanical simulation of a sundial.

don't forget that watches are just a mechanical simulation of a sundial

I disagree. Sundials are rubbish for telling time and they look different throughout the year. A (decent) watch does not attempt to replicate the inadequacy of a sundial; it just tells you the time.

It could also be said that mechanical watches are rubbish for keeping time compared to their digital counterparts. Always gradually moving away from accurate timekeeping, they must be rewound to keep proper time. They don't sync with the official time distribution services so are not guaranteed to be accurate.

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