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The AndTheClock-app is a live wallpaper app for Android, which can be easily adapted to your personal taste. It shows the actual time in a digital presentation and shows the running seconds in a circle around it. It displays the time as what we call a studio clock.
The current day and date can be optionally displayed. The date format can be adjusted to your local convention. You can choose from a variety of fonts in the app, or try the 'surprise' font that randomly applies one of the embedded fonts every minute. You can also use a local font on your phone (downloaded from somewhere). To use the font, select first the font file via the 'Select font file' option on your phone (usually your download folder). As last step, select the [file font] item from the list of available fonts via the 'Fonts' option.
Different colors as default are used every 6 hours. You can select different color sets and make your own custom set. The background color can also be changed optionally combined with one of the available transparent textures. You can also use your own background image, which you can select from your gallery (should be less than 6 Mb). If desired, you can change the text font and scale it down.
An optional RSS feed can show you feeds as a ticker line at the banner position. You should therefore enter the full web address of the desired feed. You can adjust the frequency, recurrence times and max. number of items of the feed line. You can store 3 addresses so that you can easily switch if you wish. If the RSS feed is enabled, it will show every time your screen is unlocked and optionally every 2, 5, 10 or 15 minutes.
An optional banner can show your battery level and the temperature of your device. It uses colors to highlight different levels. You can also count and show your daily 'lookapps' to control your phonephilia. The number of times you activate your device is counted daily and displayed along with the average of the past 7 days. The counter can also be expressed as a percentage of this average. Remember, it just for fun.
The latest feature provides you also a simple timer. Press the center of the clock and the timer starts running (if enabled), from some minutes to 0:00 or vice versa. You can stop it any time by pressing the center again, and again to return to the normal mode.
Another nice feature is a clock background in two colors, for example using the colors of the Ukraine flag (you know why):
- Enable in "Settings via Date & Options" the option "Show clock circle"
- Set via "Color set & more" / "Custom colors" / "Set custom colors (by hex value)" the "Clock circle color" in FFD700 and the "Clock circle (upper-)color" into 0057B7
Installation
After downloading the AndTheClock-app (on your mobile), you have to install the app as a live wallpaper via long-pressing on an empty space of your home screen.
You cannot find the AndTheClock-app in your regular app directory as it will be downloaded in an Android system directory reserved for live wallpapers.
If you have any problems with setting the wallpaper, use a special wallpaper picking app, such as Google Wallpaper.
You can download the app via the download-page. From August 2024, the app will probably no longer be available via Google Play. Despite being used worldwide for over 8 years (with 200,000 downloads and eventually over 5,000 users), it was no longer maintainable with Google Play due to the ongoing requirements, but unnecessary for a non-profit app.
For those who want to know
The name of this app came about from a silly mistake in using a line from a classic Genesis song, The Musical Box. The original line is "But the clock, tick-tock, on the mantlepiece, and I want, and I feel, and I know and I touch.. ".
Reviews
The AndTheClock-app has been rated with 4 stars (out of 5 stars) by updatestar.com:
"Studio Clock Live Wallpaper is an outstanding product and was given the 'Very Good' award by its users."
Michael Ganss, UpdateStar.com (02-07-2024)
Some reviews from Google Play (some suggestions of which have been followed):
- "Very useful. But a widget would be preferable imho. And amongst all the circle dot options, one with the multiple of five second dots to be always lit would be fantastic" (24-04-2024)
- "Love this live wallpaper which is one of the best available on the Play Store. Thank you, Dev, for your hard work and effort on this, and thanks too for keeping it updated!" (09-07-2021)
- "Essential for using your android device as a bedside alarm clock. There is nothing that can compare. If only you could add your own fonts. That's the only thing missing." (22-07-2020)
- "great app, works well!! thank you!" (27-05-2019)
- "Awesome, so small in size, simple, effective and customizable!" (24-06-2017)
Release history
| Version | Date | Notes |
| 45 (1.8h) | 11-07-2024 | Added option to enable that dots can be made distinguishable every 5 seconds. Disable ticker and sounds while screen is locked. Replaced 3 fonts (Shadser, Blackletter, Magmawave). Removed daily quote option for RSS. Updated a few technical things. |
| 44 (1.8g) | 26-08-2023 | Max. background imagesize extended to 6 Mb. Added fix for using your own background and font for Android 13+. |
| 43 (1.8f) | 21-08-2023 | Technical update. |
| 42 (1.8e) | 12-01-2023 | Technical update for Android 12+. |
| 40 (1.8d) | 26-02-2022 |
A very special update to enable displaying your clock background in two colors:
Enable in "Settings via Date & Options" the option "Show clock circle" Set via "Color set & more" / "Custom colors" / "Custom colors by hex value" the "Clock circle color" in FFD700 and the "Clock circle (upper-)color" into 0057B7 |
| 38 (1.8c) | 07-08-2021 | Few fixes: After the device wakes up from sleep mode, the running timer continues to run and the manual news feed remains on. |
| 37 (1.8b) | 18-07-2021 |
- Improved Timer function (auto-expires after 20 seconds when ended or stopped, and strikes every minute while running)
- Added option to manually get news feed, which disables automatic feed (tap the date below the clock center) - Added option to explicitly enable manual tapping - Improved setting of your background & font file (Android 10+) |
| 36 (1.8a) | 30-06-2021 | Added timer function and animated circle background (transparent if using any background), improved few things more. |
| 35 (1.7p) | 08-06-2021 | Made ads free (and a little lighter), add daily quote option instead of news feed, add option to display location in banner from IP info (no additional permissions needed), increased max. image size as background to 2 Mb |
| 34 (1.7o) | 01-08-2020 | Minor release with option to use a local font and few other things. |
| 32 (1.7n) | 28-03-2020 | Replaced some fonts by new ones, added new dot option and fixed a few things. |
| 31 (1.7m) | 24-08-2019 | Added fix for news feed for all Android 8 and 9 users. |
| 30 (1.7l) | 19-06-2019 |
- Add option for rectangular dots
- Add option for having dots circle 'beating' - Add indication when charging the battery - Fix error when selecting ringtone (in rare occasions) |
| 28 (1.7k) | 24-02-2019 | Fix problem when enabling Custom set reset |
| 27 (1.7j) | 19-02-2019 | Added the next new settings:
- Entry of color hex codes (as alternative of the color picker) - Prefill circle of dots with mini dots as a path - Add some personal text to pop-up randomly - Re-enable the dot path as a square - Add extra dots to get a sort of bar - Fix message when own background fails (no write permission) |
| 26 (1.7i) | 21-07-2018 | Replaced some fonts by new exciting ones and added new Surprise 'font' showing every minute a random font. Added a 30 second run mode for dots. Stopped supporting devices with Android 2 and 3. |
| 23 (1.7h) | 10-02-2018 |
Fixed few things and added several new options:
- Reverse dot direction, - Clock background color and - Clock striking sound. |
| 22 (1.7g) | 03-02-2018 | Technical update. |
| 21 (1.7f) | 27-01-2018 | Several new options are added: dot direction can now be reversed, two fonts are replaced (Moonhouse by Protos and Ussr stencil by Death hector) and you can add your clock striking sound from your notification ringtones. Your clock can strike every hour and quarter, for even more fun. However, the striking and optional ticking sound will be suppressed if your sound is muted on your device (checked once every minute). |
| 20 (1.7e) | 03-10-2017 |
- Added optional blinking of non-digits in displayed time,
- Moved font selections in settings to main settings screen, - Fixed some rare errors when unlocking or using sound ticking. |
| 19 (1.7d) | 01-10-2017 |
- Added optional blinking of non-digits in displayed time,
- Moved font selections in settings to main settings screen, - Fixed some rare errors when unlocking or using sound ticking. |
| 18 (1.7c) | 20-06-2017 | Technical update. |
| 17 (1.7b) | 12-06-2017 |
- Added option to scale digits relative to the clock scale,
- Added two extra clock scale levels (50% and 55%), - Modified date format (dayname is now abbreviated in all cases), - Fixed case when newsfeed does not respond within a few seconds, - Fixed two rare problems, which sometimes crashes the app. |
| 16 (1.7a) | 11-03-2017 |
- Added setting to select image background file (requires new write permission to your storage),
- Added horizontal offset option of clock center, - Added new 'invisible' dot mode, - Increased font and dot sizes a little bit, - Re-added average calculation of lookapps-counter, - ae-arranged settings in sub-menu's. |
| 15 (1.6a) | 22-02-2017 |
- Added feature for own image as background (any jpg within main folder of your storage),
- Replaced 3 fonts (lcd_phone, led_digital and gas) by the 3 new ones, - Lookapps usage % is based on max. last week (instead of average last week), - Standard amber color set replaced by ‘multi-purpose’ grey color set, - Disabled news feed when battery level is below 15% (to save power a bit). |
| 14 (1.5a) | 26-01-2017 |
- Added news feed option (as ticker line, internet permission needed),
- Added option to vertically adjust the center of the clock, - Updated some minor textual and technical things. |
| 13 (1.4a) | 17-11-2016 |
- Added color picker to enter colors for custom set,
- Added feature to change background color and texture, - Rearranged settings and fixed one or two bugs. |
| 12 (1.3a) | 26-09-2016 |
- Added new fonts (and removed ozone, led16 and charaille),
- Added ‘lookapps’-counter to monitor your daily device usage, - Added features to shake and enlarge the dots, - Added option to offset banner for a custom vertical position, - Rearranged settings and changed other cosmetic things. |
| 11 (1.2a) | 27-05-2016 | Added more fonts (including your default android font), time can be shown as HH:MM as well, wallpaper can disabled when screen is locked, scaling fonts is improved, and a lot more. |
Examples
Below you find a few screen images of the AndTheClock-app.
