An altcoin clock that installs like an app

What installing actually changes

The clock works fine in an ordinary browser tab. Adding it to a home screen changes four things, and they are the four that decide whether a screen can be left alone with it.

• Full screen

  No browser around it

  No address bar, no tabs, no toolbar creeping in at the bottom. The split-flap board gets the whole panel, which is the difference between a clock and a website about a clock.

• Stays awake

  The screen does not dim

  An old phone propped on a shelf is useless as a display if it locks after thirty seconds. The installed app asks the system to keep the screen on while the clock is open.

• Its own icon

  One tap, straight to the board

  The icon opens the clock itself, not the front page. No typing a URL, no hunting through tabs — which matters when the device doing the displaying is not the one you use.

• Still live

  Real numbers, not a snapshot

  Prices, distance from the all-time high, the multiple needed to break even and Bitcoin dominance keep updating from public market APIs. Installing changes the frame, never the data — the data was never the flattering part anyway.

Add it to your home screen

Takes about fifteen seconds. Pick your device.

iPhone and iPad

1. Open altclock.crafnia.com/app in Safari. Other browsers on iPhone can add an icon too, but Safari is the one that reliably opens it as a full-screen app.
2. Tap the Share button — the square with the arrow coming out of it.
3. Scroll down the sheet and choose Add to Home Screen, then Add.
4. Close Safari and open the clock from its new icon. No address bar should be visible.

Android

1. Open the clock in Chrome.
2. Tap the ⋮ menu at the top right.
3. Choose Install app. On some builds it reads Add to Home screen instead — either one produces the same result.
4. Open it from the new icon. Chrome may also offer this to you on its own after a minute or two on the page.

Windows, Mac and Linux

1. Open the clock in Chrome or Edge.
2. Click the install icon at the right-hand end of the address bar — a small monitor with an arrow — or use the ⋮ menu and pick Install.
3. The clock gets its own window with no browser chrome, which you can drag onto a second monitor and pretend not to look at.

What it cannot do

Worth saying plainly, because the comparison people usually have in mind is a desktop screensaver, and phones do not work that way.

• Not automatic

  It will not start on its own

  iOS and Android do not let anything — web app or native app — take over the screen when you are not using the device. You open the clock and leave it open. A native app would hit exactly the same wall.

• Foreground only

  Keeping the screen awake ends when you leave

  Switch to another app and the phone goes back to its normal timeout. Come back to the clock and it takes the lock again by itself.

• iOS 16.4+

  Older iPhones dim as usual

  The keep-awake part needs iOS 16.4 or later. Below that the clock still runs perfectly; the screen just follows your normal auto-lock setting, so set that to Never if the device is only there to display.

• Needs a network

  Offline it has nothing to say

  Every number comes from live public APIs. The app will open without a connection, but a price clock showing yesterday's price is just a screenshot with extra steps, so it does not pretend.