<nerdy>And prime, just like 941, 419, and 491 (only a time in late 18th century France). With one even digit, this is the best one can do. I don't think you can do better with three odd digits, either unless you cheat with the triple (1,1,3)

If you stick to squares, 01:49 is the best, though, with the squares of the first four natural numbers, in order.<nerdy/>

I'm honestly a bit surprised by the downvotes. 1:49 would obviously not fit the other constraints involved, and seeing how Apple is known for their eye for details and the pop-cultural significance of the 1:4:9 ratio, I'm surprised if someone didn't at least think of this when choosing between 9:40, 9:41 and 9:42...

The article explains why 9:40 is not used.

As far as the downvotes go, HN is--thankfully--somewhat anti-numerology.

I don't see that there's anything numerological about the suggestion that Apple might have worked into their publicity for the iPhone and iPad some allusions to ... a science-fictional black cuboidal artefact containing mysterious highly-advanced technology that changes the world.

(For the avoidance of doubt, I'm not claiming that they did. It could very well be no more than coincidence. But it doesn't seem all that far-fetched to me that there might have been a conversation like this: "OK, we should set the time to somewhere around 9:40 for these pictures." "Hey, if we make it 9:41 then there's a cute 2001 allusion in there." "Ha, iPhone as the monolith from 2001. I like it. Let's go with that." And there's no need to believe in numerology to find this plausible.)

Exactly my train of thought. Should've probably elaborated a bit in the original post.

Yes, thankfully. However, in this case, the fact that numerology even exists is exactly the reason to at least entertain the possibility that other motives exist beyond the practical one: people like patterns.