Mighty Clock review

We review Mighty Clock, an iPhone app that works while you sleep, and wakes you with an abundance of style

Anyone who makes even moderate daily use of their iPhone will know that it barely gets through the day on a full charge. Watch a video or two during the commute, run a few apps and play a couple of hours of games and its battery counter gets low, fast. Launch a navigation-equipped app, and you can be sure it’s going to be a thirsty phone by the time you get home.

So most of us have learned to keep some kind of charger next to our beds, and if you’ve equipped the bedroom with an iPhone cradle, then the Mighty Clock app could be just what you need to get use out of the iPhone even during the night.

This is one of many “alarm clock” applications out there on the App Store, and while there aren’t too many features shoehorned into its repertoire, it does boast an abundance of style and raw functionality.

At its core, this is indeed an alarm clock app. You can override the iPhone’s settings and tell the app to keep the device from going to sleep while it’s on charge, so firing up the app when you go to bed and standing the handset in its cradle gives you a sweet-looking alarm clock throughout the night.

The display is designed to give the classic LCD-style aesthetic, with changeable colours and a soft glow that’s surprisingly appealing for a few numbers and buttons. The display can be switched between night and day modes, maximising visibility without any unwanted glare. Sliding a finger up and down the screen manually adjusts the brightness, so you can get the light level just right without any real fuss.

You can set alarms, and choose whether to use the built-in sounds or play music from your iPod playlists. The built-in sounds all seem to feature some kind of running water noises, like heavy rain or even a dish washer, which might well encourage you out of bed when you wake up in a warm pool. A strange choice of sounds, but undoubtedly effective. Potentially too effective…

A choice of other, more basic sound effects are also included if you’re after something a bit more traditional to wake you up, such as a xylophone, harp or digital watch.

Mighty Clock can also pull in data from the weather service, to give you an idea of the world you’re stepping out of bed into, although it does come with a warning that this feature leaves the GPS running and doesn’t do your battery any favours. Assuming you’re on charge anyway this probably doesn’t matter, so long as you remember to shut the app down once you get up.

A particularly nice feature of Mighty Clock is the torch function. Should you get up in the middle of the night, you can grab the iPhone off its cradle and launch the torch feature with a single button press. This lights the full screen in white, providing a decent light to find your way around the upstairs without tripping over the cat.

A very useful app for those equipped with a cradle.

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