Wrong time in status bar during screen mirroring

In addition to the three articles I linked in my previous reply, I have found a lot about advertising in general and what is apparently Apple's policy of always putting 9:41 AM in product photos for advertising.

Steve Jobs' 2010 iPad presentation was extremely memorable, as was the 2007 iPhone presentation (the reason for "January 9th" being the date on iPhone product advertising). Here is a quote from Scott Forstall:

We design the product launch keynotes so that the big reveal of the product happens around 40 minutes into the presentation. When the big image of the product appears on screen, we want the time shown to be close to the actual time on the audience's watches. But we know we won't hit 40 minutes exactly. And for the iPhone, we made it 42 minutes. It turned out we were pretty accurate with that estimate, so for the iPad, we made it 41 minutes. And there you are—the secret of the magic time.

See also www.quora.com/Whats-the-reason-behind-the-Apple-iPhone-ad-displaying-the-time-as-9-41-AM or just do an online search for iPhone "9:41 AM"

I like the idea of this feature as a tribute to the legacy of Jobs and Apple's iOS products. If that is the intent, and given how useful it seems to be for 3rd-party developers producing their own advertising, I personally would want the feature to remain available, at least as an option for developers... but I also think users should be able to turn it off to have truthful information in their status bar when they want it, when using Quicktime Player and other apps that use ReplayKit.

Here is some more information I have found:

The "ReplayKit framework" is used by applications to input data from attached iOS devices, and apparently a modified status bar is a "limitation" of that. Zoom and QuickTime Player both use ReplayKit framework. Modifications include no carrier name, a wifi symbol even if that's not true, full battery, and time stuck at 9:41 AM. reddit.com/r/videoconferencing/comments/h0o2ug

Quicktime Player is suggested on the Apple stackexchange site as a way to get screenshots with "Time 9:41 AM - Full Battery and Wifi" for use by developers for advertising of their own apps, by using Quicktime Player with an attached iPhone or iPad. stackexchange.com/questions/154511

Quicktime Player has been doing this since the Yosemite beta in 2014. Note the article title "Yosemite’s QuickTime cleans up iOS status bar when screencasting so you don’t have to" and the quote from a reviewer is priceless. www.idownloadblog.com/2014/08/07/yosemites-quicktime-cleans-up-ios-status-bar-when-screencasting-so-you-dont-have-to/

Does the issue also happen if you use these specific steps to mirror your iPhone screen?

I have no smart TV or other AirPlay capable display.

I have now discovered screen mirroring is not needed. I get the 9:41 AM just by using the iPhone as audio input.

To be clear, this is just plugging the iPhone into the Mac with the same USB-C to Lightning cable that I use to charge or to backup in iTunes. No interaction with the iPhone is needed, I am not using the iPhone's Settings or Control Center or an app or anything else. I use QuickTime Player "File>New Audio Recording", and choose iPhone as the "microphone" input.

Therefore I should not have included "screen mirroring" in the thread title. My aim is only to play music from the iPhone onto my speakers without the need for a Lightning to Headphone adapter.

The problem is only while the QuickTime Player app has a black recording window open; and I do not need to actually start recording, it is enough to just pick the "Start Recording" command, select the iPhone as the "microphone" input, and do nothing else, as if I were just adjusting audio levels. Once closing that window, or leaving it open but selecting a different microphone input, the iPhone's status bar instantly goes back to normal. I can repeatedly switch audio inputs by touching "MacBook Pro Microphone" or "Robert's iPhone SE" using the Mac's touch bar, and the phone's status bar is wrong only when it is selected.

Oddly, the word "Verizon" (my wireless carrier) disappears from the status bar whenever the time is incorrect, and the signal strength changes to 4 bars which is not accurate. The battery icon is no longer green with a "charging" symbol (lighting bolt), instead it changes to a plain black battery, though the percentage is accurate (I watched it go up).

Which iOS version is your iPhone running?

14.4.1 (I updated yesterday)

Which macOS version is your Mac using?

10.13.6

Does your iPhone ever show an incorrect time when the screen isn't being mirrored?

Yes, when using iPhone as an audio input only (see first answer). The earlier reports ( discussions.apple.com/thread/250008253 , /thread/251865467 , and /thread/8088765 ) do not specifically mention mirroring and I shouldn't have put screen mirroring in the title.

Hi again,

Have you always experienced this behavior, or did it begin recently? If it started recently, were any changes made to your devices, or their settings before it began?

I only just tried this a couple days ago, when I lost my lightning headphone adapter and discovered I could use Quicktime Player to hear my iPhone through my computer (and therefore my speakers).

There was a slight change made yesterday when I updated the phone from iOS 14.4 to 14.4.1. You should notice that "9:41 AM in the status bar" has been a problem on iPhones for 3.5 years.

When this behavior occurs, does the time on your Mac remain correct?

Yes

Do you have any available updates for your Mac?

(The instructions you linked are "wrong", "Software Update" isn't in my System Preferences, instead I access updates in the App Store app.)

App Store shows no available updates. In update history, the latest installed items are iTunes 12.8.2, and before that was Security Update 2020-006 version 10.13.6. I do updates manually. I cannot upgrade to Catalina because my workflow requires the Carbon API. I would rather just purchase another Lightning headphone cable.

I shall point out that if "9:41 AM" on an iPhone hasn't been fixed in 3.5 years, upgrading my Mac isn't likely to help. We should stay focused on the basic fact that an iPhone shouldn't be tricked into showing the wrong time just because an "older" computer is attached.