Every day, millions of people rely on their iPhone alarm. It seems like a simple tool, something everyone understands. Yet, even the most familiar features can hold surprising secrets. These hidden details can go unnoticed for years, until someone just happens to find them.
The image above shows a typical iPhone alarm setting.
The “Never-Ending” Scroll That Ends
Everyone who uses an iPhone knows how to set an alarm. You see two columns of numbers on the screen. One column is for hours, and the other is for minutes. You scroll them up or down with your finger.
Most people think these number lists go on forever. You might scroll past 23 to get to 00 again for hours. Or you scroll down past 00 to reach 59 for minutes. This idea of a continuous loop feels right. We never really question it. Why would it be any different?
However, someone on X, formerly Twitter, recently shared a discovery. The iPhone alarm’s time picker isn’t actually a never-ending circle. It’s a very long list that eventually stops. This long list just tricks us into thinking it’s infinite.
We decided to test this claim ourselves. We can confirm it is true. If you keep scrolling your finger, you will hit an end. In the 24-hour setting, the list of hours starts at 01. It then surprisingly stops at the number 16. The list of minutes goes from 00 to 39, but only after many, many full turns.
the time picker on iphones alarm app isn’t actually circular it’s just a really long list pic.twitter.com/mvszyGILbR
— sky (@skydotcs) August 31, 2025
Why Apple Might Do This
This discovery makes you wonder: why did Apple design it this way? A good guess points to how the software is made. It might be easier for the app to load a fixed set of numbers. This is simpler than making it repeat numbers constantly. Another user on X explained the technical side:
Here we have a clock picker in the middle; on the left, it shows each hour that actually has an active cell, and on the left, all of the “Cells” being used in the middle picker.
When an hour is about to show up on the screen, it finds a free “Cell” – one that just left the screen – and puts it back on the other side, changes the number that is showing and voila, infinite scroll magic.
No matter how far you scroll here, there are actually only 7 cells created to show the hours. It’s not 12 cells in a big circle, nor tens of thousands – it just needs 7.This trick is called TableView and has existed since the first iPhone. The thing is, you still have to say how many items are in the list; here I say “10.000”. When you reach that limit, you hit the “end” of the list and realize it’s not a fancy 3D spinner after all, it’s just 7 small text boxes reused over and over again.
This might help or make things far, far worse:
Here, we have a clock picker in the middle, on the left, it shows each hour that actually has an active cell, and on the left, all of the “Cells” being used in the middle picker.
When an hour is about to show up on the screen, it… pic.twitter.com/YJ9xHHlDxP— Sky 🇺🇸 (@SkyVelleity) August 31, 2025
Other iOS Secrets
This small finding makes you wonder about other hidden things in Apple’s operating system. For example, how far into the future can the iPhone Calendar app go? One very determined Reddit user actually reached the year 10005.
Does the Calendar truly generate endless months? It seems iOS always has more to show us. Even in parts we think we know well, there are still new surprises waiting.