New GMT face

Could it be that the arrow is offset from the hour on your local time dial because Kathmandu’s time zone is GMT+5:45, rather than bring offset by a full hour? You’d have more experience than I do, but what I see in those screen shots is what I’d expect to see.

I know I keep saying this, but I’m no expert. From what I can tell, tho’, you’d look at the red hand and see it’s about halfway between the arrow (00:00) and 01:00, so you know it’s about 01:30 in London. For the precise time, I’d expect you’d have to tap the face or do a little mental math.

If it were me and I needed the precise time in London while my watch was set to Kathmandu local time, I suspect I’d set up a digital complication on a different watch face. I don’t guess even the fanciest analog Rolex GMT watch would offer an elegant way to display the way unusual time zones like yours, those in India, Australia, New Zealand, etc., when they’re not aligned on the minute hand.

I determined on my GMT face that the lines of transition between the dark/light colors on the GMT bezel (while in operation, not on the setting screen) correspond to the actual current times of sunrise and sunset for the time zone selected for the bezel! Try setting your GMT bezel time zone to your local timezone and compare to your local sunrise/sunset and check it out. This is actually a cool undocumented feature of the GMT bezel that is of course only possible on an electronic simulated version of a bezel. It does not do anything for me, however, because I keep mine set to UTC so the bezel will show me GMT, and of course the sunrise and sunset time is not applicable for UTC as a location. Conversely, if you set the bezel to your local time, you have the sunrise and sunset times in color, but your bezel and red hand will simply be 24 hour versions of your 12 hour local time on the inner dial and hands. I decided the best is to have the bezel and red hand set to GMT (so I know what it is) and then I added the local sunrise/sunset time complication on the corner so I can still have all the info.

Thank you very much for this, very clever and indeed an undocumented new feture for me. It makes it easier to live with the aesthetical disturbance of not having the arrow centralised as in physical gmts. Will be interesting to follow as the days get shorter in the north.

Happy to help! Indeed it is interesting to note that the dark and light areas of the bezel are nearly equal now for the various time zones as today is the fall equinox. It will be interesting to see it shift and we head into winter.

I wouldn't have thought to turn the crown to turn the bezel so the "GMT" hand points at the correct time. It's kind of a cheap shortcut on the watch face design to move the bezel rather than the hand. On mechanical GMT watches, the 24-hour hand will generally be pointing straight up at midnight UTC and, if the bezel turns, that's used for keeping track in yet another timezone.

On my Rolex GMT Master II, the GMT hand is pointed to GMT while the hour and minute hands are my local time. I use GMT for my flying job. I don’t get how to point the red “GMT” hand to “GMT”. (For people who don’t use it it probably doesn’t matter, for those of us who use it for a living, it just makes 1 less calculation I have to do) :)

whats the point of having the GMT hand if I can’t point it to GMT?

You basically have to turn the bezel to the hand rather than vice versa (unless I've missed something). The 24-hour hand still points to local time, not UTC; you need to turn the bezel in order for that hand to point to GMT (unless your local time happens to be BT). So, if that hand is pointing straight up, it's midnight local time, not UTC.

If you tap on the watch face, you turn the crown in order to turn the bezel so that the "GMT" hand is pointing to the correct time. Either there is a limitation to the tool kit or whoever designed the watch face has never owned an analogue GMT watch but the 24-hour hand's position on the Apple GMT watch face reflects local time, not UTC. It will point straight up at midnight local time, not 0:00 UTC. It's a "feature" of the watch face.

Thanks. Obviously the person who designed the “GMT” watch face has never owned a GMT watch or doesn’t understand aviation, marine, space and military run on GMT (or UTC or “Zulu” time)....

I still use my Rolex when I’m flying. (as I notice most commercial pilots still do) I don’t want the battery to die when I’m flying a long international trip.

Apple should change the face name to something else, because it’s NOT a “GMT” (as watch standards go) face. Oh well. It works good when I ride my bike for stats!

Thanks fir clarifying!

Happy to be of assistance and I agree with your assessment. Being poor, my GMT watch is a Glycene but I, too, am used to being able to read Zulu by glancing at the dial. The Apple watch face requires that you look closely (once you've adjusted the bezel).

“Poor”.. hmm.. I remember starting out flying in ROTC and college eating .10 cent ramen and .25 cent canned tuna almost fit for animal food, (I think it was relabeled low grade cat food) (my cat eats better today than I did then) sweeping floors and cleaning the toilets through college... Almost every pilot I know has been there. Then you get old and wonder where the time went....

I hope they “correct” the GMT function so it matches every other GMT analog watch on the planet or rename it...

Again, thank you for the help.

are you buying the iWatch 6?

and if you are in Europe, does the iWatch function as a “tethered” phone too?

Your point about not having to think about what the red hand is pointing at is good, and exactly why I am so annoyed by the 120 tick marks for the minute and second hands not corresponding to the 5 minutes/seconds that should be shown between each numeral. In your picture, is the local time 10:23 or 10:24? Need to think and analyze a bit, count the tic marks, divide by 2, lol.

Very true. I ignored it on the "fashion" type faces because I assume those are more art than function, but was hoping the GMT face was intended to be technical/professional. Maybe if Apple finally allows third party designed faces, different user needs/preferences in the market can be better addressed.

It would be great if Rolex, Omega, Heuer, Breitling etc could put their face on the Apple iWatch along with a few computer notes like the “GMT” face has now. Or at least make the red hand behave along with the bezel of an analog GMT watch.

One could get workout info and a few “modern” amenities along with the old reliable watch face professionals are used to.

For me (and many other working transportation & military professionals, it’s not style.

It’s utility.