Presenters are constantly concerned with being on time, and although the majority of presentations are done from a computer, with its handy clock running in the upper right hand side corner, it is difficult to concentrate on the work you’re trying to do and simultaneously calculate the amount of time you have left compared to the time on display.  Timers are invaluable for situations like this, and the iPhone has a good inbuilt clock application that boasts one, but this app has not been designed to keep the timers screen active the entire time, and also does not provide users with intermediate warnings at preset intervals, like 5 minutes to go and suchlike, providing only a notification when your time is up.  SpeakerClock is the answer to all those problems, because it keeps the display screen active the entire time as well as being big and easy to read.  At any point during a presentation, users can simply glance down at their iDevice and will immediately know how much time they have left.

Using the application requires only that  you launch it, and then drag your fingers across the display in order to set the time limit you’d like, ranging anywhere from no time at all to 99 hours and 30 minutes.  Should you decide on a 30 minute limit, to start the process off you would then simply tap your display screen as you begin your presentation.  As you near the end of the time limit you’ve set, the green light will change to yellow when there are 3 minutes left, and this yellow light will become red when you have 1 minute left, allowing you ample time to begin to wrap your speech up.  It works in both landscape and portrait modes, and is also a universal application for support that is native on any and all iOS devices, which includes the iPad, whose big display it suits.

Besides all these good features however, there are some lacking, whose addition would not be an enormous process and would really change the application for the better.  One example is the fact that it does not provide the option for an audible cue at all, something which could come in very handy, and it also does not allow users to personally configure at which points the light begins to change colour.  Perhaps an individual would prefer a yellow warning at an earlier stage, say 10 minutes, and the red at 5.  It would be great to have these warnings audible as well, with a beep sounding at the first limit of 10, and then the second at the 5 minutes left mark.  However, besides these drawbacks, this is a wonderful application and users will find it comes in very handy for all types of things.