StandBy can be a desk clock, or it can do all sorts of other things.
It only took a few minutes of using the iPhone’s new StandBy mode before I started using it all the time. After a few weeks of testing the early betas of Apple’s iOS 17, I’ve already changed my daily phone routine around it — and acquired a new desk accessory in the process. I can’t remember the last time a new iOS feature clicked so well for me, and I almost can’t believe the iPhone hasn’t always had it.
StandBy, in case you missed it during this year’s blisteringly fast WWDC announcements, is a new docking mode for the iPhone. If your phone’s screen is off and it’s charging and rotated to landscape orientation, it becomes a widget machine. You can see a full-screen clock, a clock next to your calendar, a full-screen slideshow of your…