Idle Hours
A clock that quotes novels
Only for Apple TV
Free
Apple TV
The time, told in novels: every five minutes, a passage from a classic book that names the hour you're in, set in a theme of your choosing. Free, offline, no account.
Somewhere in a classic novel, a character checks the clock, and it's the time it is now. Idle Hours finds that line and puts it on your television.
A CLOCK MADE OF SENTENCES
Every five minutes the screen changes to a passage that mentions the time: "a quarter to ten", "just after five o'clock", "the clock struck midnight". The time itself is picked out in the passage, so a glance tells you the hour, and a longer look gives you a paragraph of Dickens, Hardy, Verne, Conan Doyle or Hugo.
6,715 PASSAGES FROM 289 BOOKS
Every line comes from a public-domain book on Project Gutenberg, read for its time phrases, cleaned, attributed and ranked for how well it reads. A passage you have seen stays off the screen for a week.
DOZENS OF WAYS TO SHOW IT
A split-flap board that flips between quotes. A Fell-press page printed in black and red. A stained-glass window that lights pane by pane. A Whistler nocturne with gold lights on the river. A cross-stitch sampler that sews itself in. An amber CRT, a transit map, a library card, a movie-palace marquee, and many more. Each new passage arrives with its own small piece of theatre, then the screen stays calm.
SET IT AND LEAVE IT
Pick one theme, let it shuffle with every passage, or choose one for the day and another for the night. Leave it on while you read, while friends are over, or through a quiet evening: it's an app rather than a screen saver, so open it and leave it, and the Apple TV stays awake until you press Menu. The picture drifts a few points now and then and dims after an hour without a remote press.
NOTHING TO SIGN UP FOR
No account, no internet connection, no ads, no tracking. Everything the app needs is on the Apple TV.
Swipe left or right to change theme, up or down to see where the passage comes from, and click to open settings.
Ratings & Reviews
- This app hasn’t received enough ratings or reviews to display an overview.
Six new themes:
• Seneschal and Seneschal Light: the main screen of PlumpBug's Seneschal app, with the quote in a lit panel and the hour lit on its strip of cells, in its night and daylight looks.
• Goodmountain: the quote branded into parchment a letter at a time, by candlelight.
• Abyssal: the quote read through deep water, with marine snow drifting past and a depth gauge marking the hour.
• Corner Shop: a corner shop's brick wall at night, the time in neon and the rest of the quote sprayed round it.
• Circuit: the quote etched on a circuit board.
Also in this version:
• A Keep awake setting: hold the Apple TV awake for 1, 2, 4 or 8 hours after the last remote press, then let it sleep as usual. Always, the default, keeps the current behaviour.
• Random stays on when you step through themes with left and right.
• The theme's name now appears as a small corner tag while flipping through, and a single press shows the new theme clean.
• Chrono's "five" no longer reads as "Ave", and Rain underlines the phrase in a swipe of its own.
• Smoother drawing on several themes, and small fixes throughout.
The developer, Gregory M Koch, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Not Collected
The developer does not collect any data from this app.
Accessibility
The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. Learn More
Information
- Seller
- Gregory M Koch
- Size
- 44 MB
- Category
- Lifestyle
- Compatibility
Requires tvOS 17.0 or later.
- Apple TV
Requires tvOS 17.0 or later.
- Apple TV
- Languages
- English
- Age Rating
4+
- 4+
- Copyright
- © 2026 Gregory M Koch
