CODEWITHSUNDEEP
androidios
codeman
codeman

Reputation: 9048

Get same time between iOS and Android Devices

I'm trying to return time in milliseconds between both iOS and Android devices. I was hoping that since most devices sync their time with a networked server, they would be the same. However, I'm noticing they are not precisely the same.

I'm using this method for iOS: [[NSDate date] timeIntervalSince1970]

and this for Android: System.currentTimeMillis()

Is there a better way to try to return the same exact time across devices? I'm noticing these values can be off from each other by up to 2 seconds depending upon the Android device.

The use-case for needing this synchronized time is to display a looping animation that is also synced across the devices. So the animation would need to start at the same time, perform its animation for a set duration, and then loop again.

Thanks for any help.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 176

Answers (1)

Gabe Sechan
Gabe Sechan

Reputation: 93726

You'll never get exactly the same time. The problem is that clocks aren't perfect, and that they aren't always synched to exactly the same time source at the same rate. Even if you synch to the same time source, the latency between when they process update messages will make a difference between them. 2 seconds is actually pretty good.

Time is tricky. Take 2 devices in perfect synchronimity. Fly from the US to Europe with one of them. They're no no longer in synch, and both are right- the general relativistic effects of traveling at high speed means one is now several milliseconds older than the other.

Basically what you want isn't going to happen. You'll have to settle for close enough. Although if you post why you need them so synchronized maybe we can give you some ideas.

Upvotes: 1

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